


Crowley's Catalogue

by drjohnhwatson



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M, Pining, it's a road trip through history, with one falling in love Almost Instantly and the other taking Considerably Longer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-04-07 08:26:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 74,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19081246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drjohnhwatson/pseuds/drjohnhwatson
Summary: Being a detailed compendium of events collected over the millennia concerning one entity of light, an agent of Heaven, and someone who is just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing.  OR: How Crowley falls a second time.





	1. 4004 BC & 79 AD

_4004 BC_

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Gave it a hint of light, as you do; no point in banging around in the dark and hitting your knees on table edges and whatnot. Then again, one needs knees if one wants to go about hitting them on things—not that one does, necessarily—and God got round to sorting that bit out, too.

The water, the birds and the bees, everything that one expects were created, breathed into life from nothing, settling into a routine as though they had always existed. It was all rather dull, wasn’t it? _Was_ it all that bad to tempt a woman to bite into an apple, and thereby tempt her gentleman friend into doing the same? If you thought about it, really, it was a pie-in-the-window situation; placing it there only invited sticky fingers, and you could hardly fault a serpent whispering a word here and there and then going about his business.

When the lovebirds got the old heave-ho from the garden, the serpent kept low to the ground—for the best, truly—and slithered up and onward, creeping cautiously toward the angel stationed upon the wall. The angel had a sword, a great, big flaming thing, and who knew what sort of orders had been handed down through the line, eventually resting in his hands?

Crawly did not see the weapon, however, and relaxed, shaking out his scales as muscles melted and elongated, coming together into a form not terribly unlike the one stood next to him. His wings, however, looked as though they had momentarily dipped into a pot of ink and had been unable to shake free of the colour, whilst the other’s was that pristine, almost pretentious shade of white.

“Watching them go, eh?”

The angel said nothing, but Crawly did not miss the side-long look he offered in place of speech.

“Bit of a bad break, wouldn’t you say? First offence, and all that?”

“It was the only thing they were meant not to do, and they did it. What should they have expected?”

Crawly paused. “Should it not be what _God_ ought to have expected? You pop up a thing and then hang a sign ‘round it that says ‘Do not, under any circumstances, touch’? What were they supposed to do? _Listen?_ ”

“They _did_ —until you came.”

“Weren’t you meant to be watching the tree?” Crawly prodded. “Why didn’t _you_ do anything? Tell them to stop? Threaten to take away their desserts if they didn’t obey?”

“That wasn’t my _duty,_ ” the angel stressed. “They make their own decisions; I—I am to watch.”

That statement stoppered conversation, and Crawly shifted his weight, curiosity now snagged by another topic entirely. “Didn’t you used to have a sword?”

The angel rubbed at his neck. “Er, well.”

Crawly tipped forward for a better vantage point, as though the angel secreted the weapon nearby, or possibly leaned leisurely against it. “Great big flaming thing, I seem to recall. What happened to it?”

“Ah, I...” The angel said, and then determined that to be answer enough, dipping his chin in a satisfied nod.

“Lost it already?” Now that _would_ be interesting, but the angel licked his lips, staring off into the great, vast desert stretched out in front of them like giant, unpleasantly sandy carpeting.

“Gave it away,” the angel mumbled instead, and Crawly blinked his slitted yellow eyes, not certain he had heard correctly.

“You _what?_ ” Crawly sputtered, and the angel turned finally to him, dismayed.

“I _gave it away!_ ” he cried desperately, swallowing as he broke their gaze, and Crawly followed it to the two figures plodding miserably away. The Man gripped a sword, flames licking freely along the length of metal, and it blazed beneath a sun that took shelter behind a bank of darkening clouds. The angel spun away one excuse after another.

“There—there are animals out there, you know, not like what we have in here, and—and it’s _cold,_ or it will be, and she’s expecting already! I couldn’t stand by and watch them go without anything but leaves, and I figured they would need it more than I.”

The angel, tasked with a singularly important position, gifted with a magnificent item the likes of which no one had ever seen, nor would they see again—accepted both the occupation and the weapon and immediately disobeyed. It reminded Crawly of someone else—that someone, of course, being himself—and he grinned; the expression sauntered onto his face easily, without warning, and once it started, there was simply no stopping it. “Of course; makes perfect sense.”

“It isn’t funny!” the angel protested, and it only served to stretch Crawly’s smile all the more. “I—I _do_ hope I didn’t do the wrong thing.”

“Oh, you’re an angel,” Crawly dismissed the notion. “I don’t think you _can_ do the wrong thing.”

The angel sagged visibly in relief, and Crawly ignored the somewhat cruel urge to remind him that demons were known to lie and, in fact, they were rather encouraged to do so as wildly and freely as possible. “Oh—oh thank you,” he stammered, wringing his hands together. “It had been bothering me, you see.”

“I’ve been worrying, too,” Crawly surprised himself with the admission. “What if _I’ve_ done the right thing, mentioning that the apple looked tasty and wouldn’t they enjoy a nibble at it and all that, and _you’ve_ done the wrong thing, not letting them simply toddle off and let come what may?”

He laughed, then—laughed the sort of laugh one laughs when they hope to God or Satan or whatever else there may be that what just happened had _not,_ in fact, happened at all. It started somewhere in the stomach and sneaked out the mouth to avoid being caught and dragged back again, and the angel joined him.

The humour left them as promptly as it bubbled up, as it tends to do in such instances, and lightning threaded across the clouds, a rumble of thunder low and threatening in the distance. Rain pattered gently before picking up in force, and the tips of white feathers brushed against his hair as the angel lifted his wing, sheltering Crawly.

Grateful for the reprieve from the precipitation, Crawly sidled closer. “Crawly,” he said by way of introduction, simple and to the point, and the angel nodded.  
  
“Aziraphale.”

“Bless you,” Crawly drawled dryly.

The angel’s lips twitched, and the faintest trace of a smile flickered onto his face before he thought better of it, clearing his throat and returning to solemnity.

 

* * *

 

_79 AD_

 

People did what people do best in disasters; that is to say, they ran around like ants, pinging blindly here and there as the equivalent of a child with an overwhelming desire to play God loomed over them, wielding a gigantic magnifying glass. And that is what happened. Well, sort of. The fire was there, anyway, or rather the lava; it moved thick and fat as clotted cream, rolling inexorably out and smothering buildings and civilians alike with an almost practised ease.

“Not looking so good, is it?” Crowley asked a fellow as he ran by carrying a large pot, and he only offered him one terrified glance over his shoulder before scurrying down the path.

A woman here, a man there, jostled past the demon, bumping and pushing him so that he nearly lost his footing as he strolled casually in their wake. Some families boarded themselves away in their homes, nailing up planking and barricading doors. Others just dropped to the ground where they were, waving their arms piteously and calling out to the deities of their preferred method of religion.

One had just about as much of a chance of working as the other, which was to say not at all, and Crowley growled to himself. The demon might have put his hands into his pockets had his manner of dress bore them, but he contented himself instead to pick up his pace as he moved downhill.

A wagon loaded with all of one family’s earthly possessions stalled in the mud, impossibly stuck as the father tugged desperately at a rope circled round one of the horse’s necks. The wheels sunk lower into the slurry, and the wagon tilted diagonally as it shifted and settled, the horses screaming and rolling their eyes as sweat shone along their coats. The two children pressed close to their mother, hiding their faces in her clothing as they clung to her with their tiny fists. It would surely take a miracle for the family to extricate itself from the mess.

As Crowley waltzed by, the wheels whirred quickly, suddenly finding purchase in the mire, spinning and launching the wagon and its occupants forward with a jolt. The buildings on either side swayed to a song no one heard, and stones of pumice arced down from the sky, whizzing and slamming into the ground. Those that ran past Crowley tied pillows to their heads to soften the blow of any falling debris, and a cluster of people knelt beneath the swaying and wiggling branches of fruit trees, screaming and sobbing as they held one another.

Lamps bobbed here and there, helping to shine through the haze, and Crowley squinted. The ash spewed from the eruption blotted out the sun; it might as well have been midnight rather than noon. The ash—the _bloody_ ash! It fell like snow, _just like snow._ Light and powdery at first, but it quickly collected and accumulated, drifting and deepening. It parted like the sea before Crowley, which was fortunate as he preferred to keep detritus out of his sandals, if at all possible.

Down along the shore waited a long cutter ship, resplendent with sails, and Crowley picked up his pace, slipping in amongst the crowd that wafted on and off it, loading it with whatever could be carried.

“Oh, do hurry, do hurry! Best not to, ah, tarry!”

The voice cut through all the cacophonous chatter about him, and Crowley stopped, attempting to pinpoint its origin.

_There!_

Aziraphale stood like a pillar amidst the chaos, his toga swaying as he motioned the people onward, directing them toward the ship. He paused now and again to whisper what was undoubtedly a word of comfort, and then slipped his hand from their shoulders, nudging them forward like a bird parting its young from the nest.

“Do you _really_ need to tell them they ought to get on the boat? Seems a bit obvious, don’t you think?” Crowley could not resist speaking directly into Aziraphale’s ear, willing to offer up the excuse--if asked--that he might not have heard him otherwise over all the caterwauling.

The angel jumped and spun on his heel, surprise alighting upon his face. “Ah! Crawly.”

“It’s Crowley, remember?”

“Oh, ah, yes, that’s right; I recall it now,” Aziraphale blushed. “It slipped my mind; it has been awhile, after-all. How long? It must be—”

“Thirty-eight years,” Crowley offered, and Aziraphale raised a brow at his ready response. It was Crowley’s turn to fumble over his words, and the demon thought up a nice swear to use at a later time. “It’s easy to keep track; I don’t have much else to do.”

“No?” Aziraphale gave him a _look_ as he ushered a woman with a child forward, his voice sweet but belying a sharpness that Crowley did not quite like, “Nothing wicked at all?”

“ _Oh,_ no,” Crowley said, wishing for the second time he had something akin to pockets. He could slip his hands into them and become the consummate picture of nonchalance. Really, he could have done something about it, but he had more concerning matters at present. “I’ve finished that already.”

“Mmm,” Aziraphale hummed, and then did a double take, horrified as he pointed toward the petulant volcano. “You—you didn’t do _that,_ did you?”

“What? _No;_ don’t be silly! I don’t muck about with that; I don’t even know if I could!” Crowley mused, and then wondered for one brief second what it might be like if he did. “No, that’s all...you know,” he said, lifting a finger meaningfully up at the blackened sky.

Someone slammed into Crowley from behind and he fell into the ash. Gentle hands helped him to stand, and those same hands brushed against his chest, dislodging soot from his cloth. “They didn’t mean to do it.”

“Yeah, I know,” Crowley smoothed at a fold in his clothing, and he followed behind Aziraphale naturally as the angel boarded the vessel. “Don’t you find it a waste, Aziraphale?”

“How so?”

“Well...” Crowley looked back to the shore—no, he looked back to the houses. Frightened families huddled within the structures, praying for some sort of saviour that had no intention of stopping what they had started. “What’s the point of erasing this town from the maps? What good does it do? It seems more like something _we’d_ do.”

“It’s not really up to us for—for interpretation,” Aziraphale frowned, watching the men haul the anchors up from the sea. “It must be done. And 'we'? _You._ ”

“Just like the ark? I thought this would never happen again,” Crowley offered innocently, and Aziraphale’s frown switched to the closest thing the angel had to a dirty look.

“This isn’t a flood, it’s, erm, well—it’s rather different, you know.” Aziraphale fidgeted uncomfortably.

“Not by my mark, it’s not. Are you telling me you think it fine that those that stayed behind are left to die? All those children? What sin did they commit?”

The angel fretted, twisting at the cloth of his toga. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but we ought not question it. It is, after-all, part of the—”

“Don’t say it,” Crowley groaned, and the ship crept forward beneath his feet. The refugees aboard began to hug one another, and Aziraphale relaxed, exhaling with a sigh. He glanced toward the town, however, his bottom lip trembling, and then he put his back to the sight.

“Is it my imagination or have we stopped?” Aziraphale looked to Crowley, puzzled, and the demon clicked his tongue to his teeth.

“I suppose we have,” Crowley said breezily, pressing down his—his—what was this feeling, anyway? It wasn’t fear—he could escape the destruction easily. It couldn’t be the people, could it? He had witnessed worse still with Noah and, really, he shouldn’t care at all anyway.

“It’s the wind.”

“Pardon?” Crowley blinked, jostled out of his thoughts, and he followed Aziraphale’s gaze, landing upon the slack sails.

He looked then to Aziraphale, whose recent exaltation dissolved, leaving him to turn to the choppy water with a sombre expression. Those gathered ‘round them had also identified the error and began to chatter, the panic mounting in their voices with each passing moment as the volcano continued unabashedly expelling its contents.

That was something Crowley never quite understood about angels; or, rather, it was something he had never liked about the lot of them. It was perfectly within Aziraphale’s power to change their fortune, yet he hesitated. What stayed his hand? A blind faith and trust that what happened ought, and what would be, _should_ be.

It seemed to Crowley that what _should_ be was apparent, unless one dithered and wrung their hands and muttered ineffable plan this and infallible God that, and so it was that the demon extended his palm out in front of his mouth and blew ever so lightly across it.

The sails sprang to life, billowing out and drawing the ship forward, out into deeper water and away from the death that lie waiting along the shoreline. The angel tipped his head back and did two things which very much surprised the demon, and very much pleased him in equal measure.

“Oh! There it goes!” Aziraphale cried delightedly, smiling up at Crowley and sharing his joy with the demon. Point One.

In his jubilation, he caught hold of Crowley’s arm, holding tight to it, and his warm, soft hands felt better against Crowley’s skin than a particularly sultry ray of sunshine. Point Two.

“Lucky break,” Crowley said, voice definitely, absolutely, _certainly_ level.

Yet the angel stared a second time at the sails, back to the demon, down at his hands, and then let him go, suspicion trailing through eyes that reminded Crowley of nothing so much as a cloudless summer day. “Yes. Right. Lucky—lucky break. A miracle, one might say under other, ah, circumstances.”

“ _Nah,_ I wouldn’t,” Crowley disagreed affably, and he was rather thankful that his darkened spectacles hid his eyes from view, otherwise the angel would have known he returned his gaze unflinchingly.

Something in Aziraphale’s expression softened. “You said that it has been thirty-eight years since we last met?”

“I might have mentioned so, yes,” Crowley replied, wishing for the final time that day that his garments had somewhere he could place his hands and immediately effect an air of casualness.

“Care for a drink when this is all over? I dare say I could use one, and I suspect you may feel the same.”

“If you like,” Crowley carefully applied an aloof edge to his tone, and the angel nodded, possibly to Crowley, possibly to himself, before turning to peer out over the sea.

The fear of death had not bothered him, nor had the promised demise of the clustered evacuees.

He had performed a miracle solely to keep from disappointing _the angel._

_Satan help him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I read the book nearly ten years ago but watched the show more recently, so this is obviously for that instead. I have a mind like a sieve, too, so that doesn't help me retain bookly details.
> 
> For this first chapter, I obviously had to show Heaven, and I didn't really want to wholesale copy it. So it was brief and a bit different, but a bit the same, too. Most of the rest of what I do will be different entirely given that there's so much historical events for which they could have been present. Not that it WILL all be specific events.


	2. 410 AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Crowley finds himself in the midst of a sacking.

_410 AD_

Crowley lingered in Rome for a few centuries. Some might say that he put down roots, but Crowley did not consider himself to be a houseplant. Simply, the city had it all. Entertainment, excitement— _fun._ Stepping out his door on any given day, he could find himself in the midst of a new experience.

The experience on this particular Wednesday: a sacking, although that event was hardly new to the demon, who had been through a few in his time spent roaming the planet. For a year or so things had been what some may refer to as ‘not very cheery’ in the city, rampant hunger _here_ , a siege or two _there_. Crowley always looked upon it as a rolling storm, however: a bit of rain, some blustering wind, and it would be over and things would right themselves out again.

Only it seemed at the moment that this might just be it.  Mausoleums belonging to Augustus and Hadrian were broken into, their funereal urns upended and the ashes of the men scattered wildly about like feed for chickens. It would have ruffled Crowley’s feathers, if he popped his wings out in that moment—he had known Hadrian. The emperor was an odd duck, able to swing from cruelty to kindness in one go, as though a celestial being leaned against one great scale and a demonic entity rested his elbow on the other, both sides in constant conflict.

Well. He was long dead, and his ashes were now trampled into the dirt or stuck to the bottoms of people’s sandals. The pleasure gardens of Sallust burnt, flames wreathing along the trees and dancing amongst the heads and limbs of statues smashed beneath the hands of invaders. Crowley’s fingers twitched at the sight of the destruction; he spent many a day basking drowsily in the sun, half-listening to the people who chattered and passed by him, yet it lay in fresh ruination.

He could dampen the fire in one portion, at least, but there seemed to be no point. Someone else would trot through and spark up a new blaze, and the demon could have hardly stood there the entire day, perpetually extinguishing infernos as they arose; he was not a fire-fighter, after-all.

People ran hither-and-yon—ants again, you see—and the contents of each home were strewn from thresholds and into the street, anything valuable sifted out and removed. Somewhere nearby a dog howled, and raucous laughter added to the insufferable din.

Crowley stood. Actually, no, he sat. He _sat_ in the middle of a group of people, all pushed and nudged into a circle, gathered up and thrown together like a pile of jewellery pilfered from a nearby villa. _All part of the Plan,_ he thought sarcastically, squinting up at the sky and blinking awkwardly.

He could not recall the last time he went without his darkened spectacles and felt naked without them, not pleasantly so but exposed—vulnerable. Crowley nearly hissed reflexively when someone slapped them from his face, grinding them beneath a firm heel, and he allocated a few moments toward pitying himself with the memory before wriggling into a straighter position.

With a snap of his fingers, the ropes fell like limp noodles from the wrists of the captives, and Crowley’s came last, tumbling noiselessly against the front of his toga. The men muttered to themselves, astonished at their _i_ _ncredibly good luck,_ and Crowley leaned forward, scratching at his cheek.

“Right, well, seems like you may be able to turn the tide here. There’s—what—one, two...twenty of you? Thereabouts? And just _one_ guard with a sword? I’d enjoy those odds,” he murmured enticingly, and he had always been quite good at providing convincing arguments for humans.

They rose as one, a collective fire in their eyes, and Crowley stretched to his feet, rolling his neck as he rubbed at his wrists absentmindedly. It was tiresome enough to be swept up once; Crowley preferred to avoid it a second time and thus shifted into his serpentine form, creeping close to foundations of homes and the edges of the street. What with the pillaging and raping so inherent when invaders came knocking at your door, the Romans had more to worry about than a snake sliding through the grounds of their estate, and Crowley took advantage of it.

The demon would have blinked if he could, shutting out the sight of women being separated from men, and the soul-searing screams they uttered as they were dragged away. He turned his head instead, flicking his tongue out as it seemed like the thing to do, and drew through a large crack betwixt two bricks in a wall that protected a private garden from prying eyes.

He had, if he recalled correctly, been in the garden a time or two in the past, not exactly _invited,_ and the crack made room for him, growing in order that he could creep snugly through it unscathed by mortar.

If things _really_ went pear-shaped, Crowley could always tuck himself into this hole and sleep for a bit. Generally, with time, humans always repaired the destruction they themselves caused, and the demon twisted against the dirt in the dark. Doze for a little while and pop out again into Rome version 2.0? Tempting indeed.

A muffled noise reached him, however, and Crowley decided that curiosity truly _was_ one of his better traits as he poked his head out from the crack, slipping his tongue from his mouth in an excellent interpretation of an innocent snake acting in a perfectly normal, remarkably snake-like way, should anyone catch sight of him.

It took Crowley only a moment to recognise he heard the sound of tears. Well. One doesn’t _hear_ tears, necessarily, but rather the symptoms instead. A quiet sniffle, followed by another for good measure, and a shuddered inhalation broke from someone seeking escape in the gardens.

Crowley swayed through bright red roses that dipped and traced along his scales in the wake of his movement, and he peeked cautiously around a cypress tree.

A jolt ran through him when he spotted Aziraphale sitting on a stone bench, his face in his hands, shoulders quivering.

There he was, his—what were they, exactly? Not friends, no, but that was definitely his angel, insofar as he was the only one of the lot of them with which it was worth having a conversation. And _certainly_ only Aziraphale would drink with him—drink so much that nothing at all made sense and, yet, also drink so much that everything fell neatly into place until sobriety came to collect him.

Yes, _his_ angel, then, but—not his friend.

He slid beneath the bench, wondering when precisely he ought to give the closest approximation to a throat clearing to note his presence, but then the choice was made for him.

A fellow burst from the home, weighted down with a number of gold bands that belonged most recently to others, and Crowley shrank closer to the shadows cast by the bench. At this juncture, if he had to blink he would have refrained, watching unflinchingly as the intruder caught sight of Aziraphale and swaggered forward.

“Oh! I—I apologise if these are your gardens, it’s only, well, there’s quite a big to-do going on out there...” Aziraphale trailed off, and Crowley wondered if he had been stricken with partial blindness.

No. Of course not. It was that damned gullibility, that naivete that resided in most angels and fairly overwhelmed Aziraphale.

The fellow, to his credit, did not _openly_ laugh at Aziraphale’s query, and instead hauled him from the bench, shoving him toward the wall opposite to where Crowley entered. The angel stumbled but righted himself, fingertips brushing along the bricks, and comprehension dawned upon him.

“Oh. I see,” he said softly, and Crowley wriggled uncomfortably at the sorrowful key in which the angel spoke.

He had to be careful; the man could easily stab down, piercing his brain straight through, and then Crowley would be flung back to hell quicker than he could say ‘well, that was a bit of an overreaction, wouldn’t you say?’

The risk was immense, but Crowley could hardly stay at bay and so he neared the twosome, crawling along at a pace that would make a snail look like a hare.

“Listen. I understand what it seems you ought to do, but—but haven’t you had enough? Look at—at what you have there. Ah, those pretty, er, trinkets and what-have-you about your neck. Those _are_ rather fetching, aren’t they? Isn’t that reward enough, hm? I should like one myself, you know—you ought to be quite proud to have them.”

Crowley shook his head at the angel’s defence. The man wouldn’t understand a word that he said, and even if he did, the demon reckoned he might stab him again for good measure.

The soldier pulled out his sword, gripping a fistful of the angel’s toga with his other hand, pressing him against the wall as he drew back his arm. Certainly Aziraphale would move! Certainly he would snap his fingers and turn the fellow’s sword into—into a handful of confetti! Certainly he would do _something!_

The angel took a deep breath, shutting his eyes instead, and Crowley realised that he surrendered himself to the _Greater Good,_ to the Ineffable Plan that could be in no way determined or delineated.

Well, Crowley thought—as alarm and panic and something that couldn’t possibly be _fear_ that he would lose his angel welled up inside him—if it meant Aziraphale would become not unlike a pincushion, then _sod the plan._

Crowley flashed forward, winding up the man’s right leg. The bastard screamed as soon as he looked down at Crowley, horrified to find a snake upon his person, and he immediately dropped his sword in his shock.

This, however, did not satisfy Crowley in the least, and he bared his fangs in order that he might sink them deep into the man’s salty flesh, wishing he had produced a bit of venom to go along with it. The fellow howled and continued to shriek, half-stumbling toward the entrance of the home, half-slapping and clawing at the demon to free himself.

Crowley relinquished his grip on the soldier, unable to dilute the taste upon his tongue, and tumbled back to the grounds in a mess of coils as his victim fled. He lay somewhat in a daze, heaped altogether, and felt Aziraphale’s gentle hands brush against his scales.

“Oh no—he—he didn’t hurt you, did he?”

 _No,_ Crowley replied, repressing the pain that reverberated through his skull, and the angel smoothed him out, kneeling in the flowers.

“You saved me, my dear. Thank-you.”

 _Sssshut up,_ Crowley mustered up his best imitation of irritation, thankful that snakes did not blush. He had made up his mind to return to his normal form, figuring between the pair of them they ought to make it out all right, and then Aziraphale spoke again.

“You had best come with me,” he said, and Crowley started to reply when the angel held his left hand down, palm upward.

For a brief, exhilarating moment, the demon believed Aziraphale wanted him to take his hand; however, he recalled that snakes often found such a concept to be troublesome at best. His disappointment was fresh—stinging—but then he realised Aziraphale offered him something better still.

Crowley decided he could wait a bit to look human—nothing wrong with getting in touch with one’s roots, right?—and slithered into the angel’s waiting hand, twisting up his arm and slipping beneath his clothing.

“How did you know that he wasn’t fond of snakes?” Aziraphale wondered, and Crowley snorted.

 _Mossst_ _people aren’t._

“I like them,” Aziraphale said after a moment, as Crowley curled himself twice around Aziraphale’s arm, nestling his head and a portion of his upper body into the hollow of the angel’s collarbone.

 _Oh?_ A note of hope arose, somewhere between the scale right there, at his belly.

“I like all God’s creatures, you know,” Aziraphale replied, bubbly.

Crowley fought a wave of disappointment prompted only, of course, by such a Blandly Angelic Response, approved and notarised by those _Up Above_ before it ever left Aziraphale’s lips. _Look. You’re leaving a garden with a sssserpent._

“I don’t find that very funny,” Aziraphale tsked, and Crowley withered a bit, unable to see his frown but sensing he found himself now in its presence. “But...I am glad that you were there. Just now. Things looked to be a bit dicey.”

 _Why didn’t you ssstop him?_ _You could have done it easssily, with one thought._ He played with fire, but Crowley couldn’t resist flicking his tongue up, catching Aziraphale’s cheek.

“I wish that you wouldn’t do that—it tickles,” the angel said, but he laughed as he spoke, and the demon pressed closer to his warm skin. “But in answer to your question, I—you understand what it is I’m meant to do. It was his decision to make, not mine. Not _yours,_ either.”

_I thought you appreciated it._

Aziraphale said nothing for a moment, then sighed. “I—I shouldn’t admit it, but I...did. I _do._ I don’t want to go back up there. Not—not right now, anyway. And I’m familiar with this body, and rather fond of it to boot.”

Crowley stopped his first reply from surfacing, ie, that he was rather fond of Aziraphale’s form as well. He doubted the angel would be pleased with the show of support. _Would you have done the sssame back there?_

“Beg your pardon?”

_If I found myssself in peril; if our posssitionsss were ssswapped. Would you have let me die?_

Crowley knew instantly he stepped over some line in the sand that never made itself visible until it was far too late, at which point it was of no use to anyone.

Aziraphale stiffened beneath him. “It isn’t—we _really_ aren’t meant to get involved, Crowley. You know that as well as I do. And it—it’s not death, per se, but discorporation. I don’t understand why you do it.”

Crowley understood precisely why he bit the man back in the garden, and why he would do it a thousand times over if necessary. Or, rather, he would have understood had it been possible for him to feel such things—and it wasn’t.

He curled tighter into Aziraphale, and allowed his head to droop glumly against the angel’s throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have too much to say here, really. This is the sacking of Rome in 410 AD, when the Visigoths overran it. The stuff I mentioned, ie, Hadrian and Augustus's mausoleums being ransacked and their ashes spread, as well as the burning of the garden of Sallust, all happened. Thought it would be fun to toy with. I have another chapter done already; I want to try to keep a cushion and have one written and in the pocket in case something goes wrong. Should be up in two days! Thanks to everyone who've read and left such nice comments; I hope not to disappoint you.


	3. 537 AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley takes a walk through the woods.

_537 AD_

Crowley dragged his heels a bit as he walked, the metal clanking and singing with every step that he took. _Dreary_ weather. Wet, foggy, misty, muggy, clammy, damp—the words rang through his head with every footfall. If it kept up much longer, he’d rust—or the mail would, rather. This was the type of metal that rusted, wasn’t it? Seemed like it, and nobody would fear a fellow tramping about in a squeaky, decrepit hulk of scrap.

“Wait here for me,” Crowley directed his page, and the lad immediately ceased tailing the demon, falling behind and running his hand along the horse’s neck that walked alongside him.

Birds chirped and trilled, hopping from branch to branch above Crowley as he clattered along on his own. It was hopeless to attempt to sneak up on anyone unless they were stone deaf, and the demon preferred to have an audience.

Ahead lay a fork in the road, and, as Crowley could see prints in the mud leading down the path to the left, that was the one that he chose. A stream burbled somewhere near at hand, and it stood to reason that most travellers would seek it out, a fresh source with which to drink and clean themselves. _He_ didn’t need to drink, no, but a mouthful of water after hours on foot tempted him mightily.

He clacked loud enough to wake the dead as he stepped down the hill, and it was more of a stumble, honestly, as it proved steeper than he first anticipated. Dried leaves gave beneath his boots, and his pace quickened beyond his choice, sending him tottering down and stopping unceremoniously at the edge of the creek, narrowly managing to keep upon his feet.

A knight knelt at the edge of the riverbed, almost directly across from him, and he hastily scrambled upright, hand on the hilt of his weapon before he thought better of it. He drew it, pointing the tip in Crowley’s direction.

“I have a sword!” he cried, just in case brandishing it had not done the trick, and he repeated himself. “I have a sword, and I know how to use it!”

Crowley had evidently been too long lacking in the company of others save for that of his page (which wasn’t much too speak of at all), for the very moment he spotted the tuft of blond hair and recognised the stranger was no stranger at all, he relaxed at once.

He strode forward, walking into the water and bypassing the large, flat rocks—it would hardly do much at all for his image to step on a stone and then suddenly find himself sitting in the river—and when he reached Aziraphale, he carefully used his spear to press aside the angel’s weapon as he encroached upon his personal space.

Aziraphale allowed him to do so without any resistance, tilting his head as he squinted at Crowley’s helmet. “Crowley? Is that you?”

Crowley had kept his head somewhat lowered as he advanced, but when Aziraphale identified him without any apparent hesitation, he blinked in surprise, meeting the angel’s gaze. “How’d you realise it was me?”

“Oh! Well, you have a way about you, you know. You sort of sway your hips, you see,” Aziraphale replied, wiggling his hand in the air in demonstration.

Embarrassed but also nursing a spark of pleasure at being so easily recognised, Crowley sought at a quick change in conversation. “ ‘I have a sword and I know how to use it’! _Really?_ ”

“I—well, yes!” Aziraphale puffed his cheeks defensively, seizing on the wrong interpretation of Crowley’s teasing. “I do! I wouldn’t have been given one back all that time ago otherwise!”

“You shouldn’t _say_ it, though! It’s a bit like going ‘I haven’t got any money on me whatsoever!’ as you pass down a rather nasty alley. People tend to think the opposite.”

“I suppose I see what you mean,” Aziraphale blushed, replacing the sword into its sheath. “You startled me, that’s all. I had to come up with something to stall you, in case I had need of it.”

“Should’ve just told me you were a vicious murderer on top of it, right? ‘Stay back! I have a taste for blood and I haven’t yet killed this morning!’ Would have put me _right_ in my place.”

“That really is a terrible thing to say,” Aziraphale chided, but it came out somewhat false as his lips twitched and threatened to shift into a smile.

“Where’s your man at?” Crowley couldn’t help asking, and Aziraphale frowned for a moment before grasping his meaning.

“Ah, the page. He’s back a ways, resting. Poor thing is completely knackered—and yours?”

Crowley suspected he heard a prying note to Aziraphale’s voice, but couldn’t be certain. “The same,” he lied easily; he hadn’t really considered whether or not the youth had needed a break at all.

“So you are the Black Knight, then,” Aziraphale sniffed. “I might’ve known from the stories I’ve heard.”

 _The stories he’s heard._ Crowley wished that he would elaborate, but was wise enough not to tread down that path. “And _you_ are a knight beneath Arthur’s fist, eh? _I_ might’ve known.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

“You know _exactly_ ‘what it is supposed to mean’,” Crowley said, mimicking Aziraphale’s voice, and when Aziraphale moved past him to retake the hill, the demon fell into step alongside him. “Doesn’t it ever get to be...well... _dull?_ Always being so _good?_ ”

Aziraphale glanced up at him out of the corner of his eye. “No. Certainly not. You ought to try it again.”

Crowley scoffed. “I ought to try it—hang on. What do you mean ‘again’?”

“Whenever Vesuvius erupted...I’m not a fool, Crowley, no matter what you think of me,” Aziraphale sighed. “You brought back the wind so that the ship could sail. They would have returned to the town and perished otherwise.”

“To save myself, of course.”

“Ah, yes. Of course,” Aziraphale said quietly. “And what about in that garden in Rome?”

“All those bangles and jewels? He had terrible fashion and I thought someone ought to let him know,” Crowley argued, and Aziraphale patted his arm.

“And you did an excellent job of it, my dear boy. What is it you’re out here doing?”

“I’m here spreading foment,” Crowley answered as they reached the top of the embankment, and he didn’t miss the quick furrow of the angel’s brow.

“Foment? What is that, some kind of porridge?”

Crowley stared at him for a long moment. “Yes, I’m spreading porridge throughout all the lands. _No._ It’s—it's dissent. Discord. Disapproval. That sort of thing.”

The angel rounded on him. “Well, I’m out here...” He paused to taste the word upon his tongue. “ _Fomenting_ peace.”

“You understand that we are undoing what the other has done—that there is no purpose in it. You _can_ admit that, right?”

Aziraphale shifted his weight, rubbing uselessly at the mail over his shoulder as though he might feel the scratch upon his skin. “There’s always a purpose, Crowley. In everything that we do.”

“Oh, not this again,” Crowley groaned, rolling his eyes. “Think about it. The both of us could stay home and do nothing at all; the end results are the same. We’d report that we _did_ do something, of course; they’d be happy we’re doing our jobs, _we’d_ be happy that we _aren’t_ doing our jobs—it’s a perfect system.”

“That would be lying!”

Crowley mulled over it. “More like we cut out a few superfluous steps, wouldn’t you say? Instead of travelling from point A, to B, to C, we went straight to C. Or didn’t, for that matter.”

“That is—it’s still lying,” Aziraphale argued, but Crowley could see the hesitation in his face, hear it in the falter of his voice. “They’d check. They aren’t going to let us run ‘round doing whatever the—whatever the _hell_ we’d like. There are _standards._ ”

Crowley took a step forward, erasing the distance between them, and Aziraphale glanced up at him but did not retreat. “Just so long as we do something...every now and again...I don’t see as how it’d hurt. They love bureaucracy, after-all. They’d admire our efficiency.”

“ _That_ I sincerely doubt,” he said, and Crowley smiled at the angel’s sweet laugh. It bubbled up inside the demon, as though it had originated within him instead, and it sent something fluttering against his ribs. “Could you imagine Gabriel handing me a medal, ‘Here! For making things easier on me.’? It’s preposterous.”

He tittered a giggle again, and Crowley’s grin grew. “Fine, all right, all right. If you aren’t much for that, we could always—oh, I don’t know—we could go it together? Cancel each other out along the way? Save time and all that—neither of us would have to do a tempting or a blessing and wonder if we’ve outpaced each other.”

The smile faded from Aziraphale’s face. “A demon and an angel, strolling arm-in-arm? I don’t know about that. How would it look?”

“How would it look! We aren’t going to go parading about—it’s just for the sake of convenience,” Crowley said, trying not to think about how he would, actually, quite enjoy rambling round with Aziraphale on his arm. “And it would be two _knights._ Quite common to stick together—all sorts of ruffians lurking amongst the trees, and all that.”

“And yet even there we are on opposite sides still,” Aziraphale said quietly, and Crowley sensed whatever opportunity he had to convince the angel to come with him was currently slipping altogether too quickly through his fingers, like grains of sand through a bloody hourglass. “It is as though you do it on purpose.”

Crowley gestured between them. “Angel, demon—that is rather the point of it.”

“I didn’t mean because of that, I mean—I _mean_ that it seems as though you do what you do to vex me. Specifically!”

The demon dismissed the point airily. “I didn’t even know that you were a knight, nor that you were in Wessex. For all _I_ knew, you had been discorporated a hundred years back and were still stuck up there, sorting through a mound of paperwork to get down here again."

Crowley had, in fact, known that Aziraphale had not managed to get himself discorporated at some unpleasant juncture. He also knew well before bumping—nearly literally—into the angel that Aziraphale had taken up banner and arms as a knight. And, finally, possibly most important of all, Crowley knew that Aziraphale had been trekking around _somewhere_ in the wilds of Wessex.

If Crowley circled the area once or twice, or, perhaps, even as many as five times, it was only because it was so much easier to foment rebellion and general mistrust in the government among peasants rather than nobles, and the demon took particular care to tempt as many souls as he could along the way, gathering those he had, say, missed the first four times.

Aziraphale frowned but lingered indecisively, and Crowley caught his arm. “I didn’t say you had to stop it altogether. You do your thing, I do mine whenever we need to pad up the old résumés, and then the rest of the time it’s whatever _you_ want to do. You can’t possibly say you like it out here, in all this.”

Aziraphale fidgeted on the spot. “No, I don’t—not at _all,_ if I am to be honest—but...others are in worse spots that I am, and they don’t complain.”

Crowley cast the dice and accepted the gamble, taking another step forward, one step nearer to the angel. Aziraphale seemed to ping that perhaps Crowley came too close—closer than he ought, at any rate—yet hesitated, swallowing but holding his ground. “There isn’t anything at all you’d wish to do? Rather than flounder around out here, in the middle of nowhere?”

Giving a wiggle of his head sideways, a tiny, bashful smile appeared on Aziraphale's face as he flitted his eyes up to meet Crowley’s. “Well...now that you mention it, there is.”

 _“_ Oh?” Crowley arched a brow.

 _“_ Back in Hibernia, I had this stew. Beef, fennel, leeks...all sorts of things. Wine, too, I was told,” Aziraphale began, and Crowley couldn’t help but stare at him.

He had the opportunity to go anywhere—do anything that crossed his mind!—and he wanted to return to a place already ventured, simply to taste a _stew!_    Crowley ought to have thought it stupid—it _was_ objectively stupid, wasn’t it?—yet he felt a tug as Aziraphale kept rambling, face lighting up as he spoke about the monks with which he shared his feast. The demon found it utterly endearing that something so simple could please the angel _so_ much.

 _“_ Honey, too!” Aziraphale continued, melting slightly at the thought. “You go out and collect it yourself, and there’s something about—about scooping it out as the bees buzz ‘round you. And everyone _sings,_ and laughs, and talks with each other. You haven’t had it, then?”

 _“_ I’ve had stew before, angel,” Crowley says, and Aziraphale shakes his head.

 _“_ That isn’t what I asked you. You haven’t had _this_ stew. It isn’t the same—not at all. They have fresh baked bread to go along with it, and you use it to scrape up the leftover juice in the bowl. It is—well, it is rather divine.”

Crowley allowed himself to ponder the merits of keeping pace with Aziraphale for hundreds of leagues to eat a bowl of Soup-But-Thicker.  It, too, seemed rather stupid on the face of it, but then he thought about how excited Aziraphale tended to get around sharing food, and how relatively easy it would be to convince the angel to feed Crowley directly, and the demon half-wanted to spin Aziraphale on his heels and march him off for greener pastures at once.

 _“_ Sssoundsss delectable,” Crowley slipped—and oh, hell, he hadn’t meant to say it. At any rate, not like _that,_ it was only he had been so wrapped in his thoughts that he spoke as if in a dream, forgetting entirely what it was they discussed.

Aziraphale paled immediately, and yanked his arm out from Crowley’s grasp. “You—you’re trying to _tempt_ me!”

 _“_ I’m not trying to tempt you!” Crowley argued, and this time for every step he took forward, Aziraphale took two giant ones backward, looking round himself as though he wished for his page to make a sudden entrance. “At least not in the way that you think.”

It was the second error Crowley made, admitting that the act of temptation had been on his mind at all, and possibly worse than the first mistake.

 _“_ I cannot _believe_ you!” Aziraphale cried. “I should have known! Trying to—to get me to be derelict from my duties. Have you been playing some sort of—of long game all this time? Do you wish to pull me down _with_ you?”

 _“_ I...” Crowley immediately stopped the first reply that came to mind, an easy innuendo that would have either flown over the angel’s head entirely, or incensed him all the more. “Of course not! It’s just a bit of stew!”

 _“_ It’s never _just_ anything, Crowley!” Aziraphale hissed. “You know that better than anyone.”

 _“_ Just an apple,” Crowley agreed softly, and some of the fire left Aziraphale as he sighed.

 _“_ I—I will not go with you; I _cannot_ go with you. It’s—it’s best if we don’t interact, I think. You must agree that it’s—that it’s better for both of us if we don’t. You’re playing with fire, Crowley, with Hell and all that,” Aziraphale paused. “See that you don’t get burnt.”

Crowley watched Aziraphale clatter away from him down the path, yet the angel stopped a few yards off, glancing back over his shoulder. A thousand words welled within Crowley, but none of them seemed to suffice, none of them seemed to be the right thing to say to convince Aziraphale to stay there with him, and so he shared a last look with the angel before turning away, clenching his hand at his side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK, yes, I really hate summaries! But here are some notes for this chapter:
> 
> -The armour they wore in the show isn't actually period accurate! It's several centuries later, but there's a pervasive belief that knights mean full plate armour, no matter the time period. I'm not really fully knowledgeable on the subject either, so I kept it vague, but there aren't many (any?) real descriptions of leg and arm armour--not that that means there WASN'T any--and protective gear was mostly just leather. The helmets were simpler, too. No visors; your eyes and lower face were visible, so I had Crowley keep his head down to counteract that. Mail was invented in 500 BC if not earlier, but it didn't come to be known as "chain-mail" until the 1700s, so there you go. If my gear is wrong, I don't care; it's closer than the show's, so!
> 
> -The "Hibernia" mentioned is actually Ireland! It went through a bunch of different names over the centuries, ranging from Ireland to Éire to Ériu to Hibernia, listed in reverse order of their modernity. Hibernia is the old Latin form of it, and since I wasn't certain of what name it had during this time, I thought it would suit Aziraphale even if the name had fallen from fashion; he's a very slow-changing individual.
> 
> -The stew I mentioned is actually an Irish stew that has its roots back to roughly this time; it was supposedly a favourite of St. Columbkille, who was born in 521 AD, thus placing the stew thereabouts at least and totally a valid dish Aziraphale might have tried.
> 
> -EDIT: I just remembered I wanted to say this. For typical soldiers at roundabouts of 515 AD, swords were relatively uncommon; nearly half of the excavated graves show men buried with spears, while only about one in ten had a sword. I don't know if that translated to knights--probably not--but I thought it would be a funny nod, having Aziraphale have a sword.
> 
> -Now I beg of you not to call me on any historical inaccuracies after I've just done it.
> 
> Anyway! Hope you enjoyed it! The next part is, like, 50% larger. It should be up in about two days, same as the rest. Hope you like it, too!


	4. 793 AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley visits a monastery.

_793 AD_

Crowley did not particularly enjoy boats, as a whole. Certainly they were fantastic for ferrying a body from place to place, and they were unsurpassed when the only other option rested in swimming the ruddy channel yourself, but otherwise he preferred to keep his feet firmly upon the ground.

Vikings, as it turned out, were rather fond of ships. Oh, they _loved_ riding them here and there, and they channelled all that pent-up excitement into landing upon the beaches, spilling out and flocking near whatever town had the misfortune of building itself along the waterline.

Hell assigned him there as a gift; they enjoyed the bit he did with Charlemagne in 785, whispering words of encouragement to the Saxons, prompting them to snatch up arms against his Christianity-or-death pledge. It was a pity that the Holy Roman Emperor was quite firm in regards to the _death_ portion of his warning, but Crowley had done as needed—planted seeds, watered them, and finally stood back to watch them blossom into outright rebellion.

Or, at any rate, that’s what he had written back to those it concerned. People are rarely fond of loosening their morals and chucking up their religion, even when they have a sword pointed at their throat, and most of the Saxons were discussing rather loudly whether they should defend their beliefs with spears and the like before the demon ever stepped foot in the area. All he did was ask them questions. Why should this big brute come along and tell them how to live their life? Why was his religion any better than theirs? What made him so right, and them so wrong?

All Crowley ever _did_ was ask questions.

In his experience, that was all it ever took.

The ships nudged into the sand upon the shore at Lindisfarne, dubbed with the title ‘Holy Island’. With a name like that, one _begged_ for trouble, and Crowley followed behind the men who meant to give it, oozing out of the vessel in the wake of the warriors.

Gripping his spear and shield awkwardly in one hand in order to pluck at his green tunic, Crowley curled his lip. All this time and he had yet to get used to the bloody _wool;_ even with layers between the cloth and his skin, he _knew_ it was there, and he resisted the urge to scratch all over. The jewellery he liked better, and he flexed his hands, glancing down at the golden rings on each of his fingers.

He strolled behind his compatriots, as though he made his way to a picnic in a particularly scenic locale. If he stuck to the back, wiggled the gear around, and shouted a bit, no one was the wiser for it. He preferred not to wade into the middle of it, too; the monks painted large targets on themselves displaying all their bejewelled gew-gaws and golden relics, acting as gigantic sitting, praying ducks.

It turned Crowley’s stomach to hear the screaming and to smell the blood; he couldn’t save everyone—he shouldn’t save _anyone,_ but at times a fellow happened to get in his way, and it was just more convenient—easier for Crowley—if the man carried on living. Less energy expended on one soul. He needed to be a _big_ picture sort of demon. That was it, really. Save his efforts for something that would cause a great deal worse of a headache for Heaven, and all that.

His pace picked up without his noticing, and he neared the front of the pack of men when he abruptly stopped. At the great doors to the monastery, the Vikings set to work, sinking their axes deep into the wood. Chunks splintered and flew off, and a few men laughed as Crowley sidled nearer to the entrance.

Crowley tilted his head back, and he sniffed the air—possibly not unlike a hound. Two men nearby thought he did it in jest and joined him, joking about smelling the fear of those huddled within the walls.  The demon ignored them, however, and shut his eyes. What _was_ that smell? It was _familiar,_ but he had never been to the island before, nor anywhere near it.

There is a difference between the scent of natural and man-made things. Items dreamt up by humans, crafted and created beneath their hands, lovingly pulled from something else—every single thing carried an artificial scent. This, however, was entirely natural.  Better still, as he tried to determine what the _hell_ it was, it turned his knees instantly to water, and something there in the pit of his stomach lifted as he breathed in deeply.

It was the smell of earth after a rainfall. Fresh buds opening on the limb of a tree in spring. The salt and spray of the sea as it crashed into rocks.

It was being. It was life; it was light; it was _love;_ it was—

 _“_ Aziraphale...” Crowley whispered.

The door gave way beneath the blows, and in poured the first of the swarm of men.

 _“_ Shit!” Crowley shouted, following it up with a few more words pulled from his carefully cultivated vocabulary. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, _shit!_ ”

The demon jostled his way to the front, shoving Vikings out of his path, and he stepped inside. The moment his leather clad foot touched the ground he was buffeted back, as though slapped with an invisible hand—if that hand had first pulled on a glove coated in tiny, rather sharp shards of glass and _then_ saw fit to strike him.

Crowley reeled with an oath, his tongue forking reflexively, and one of the men stopped in their jog forward to give him a curious look. “Must’ve stepped on a nail,” the demon offered, just managing to bite back his hiss.

He tentatively edged forward, but the same wave of pain nearly knocked him flat. “ _Aargh!_ ” Crowley snarled through bared teeth, and he took several steps backward before running for the gate and leaping over the threshold.

For as often as he thought the angel to be foolish, he really gave himself little credit in the arena of stupidity. Why had he thought hopping forward would magically negate the presence of Holy Ground? And why, for that matter, had he not realised it would not be so simple to traipse around on an island quite literally dubbed _Holy?_   He had mocked the monks for being thick-headed and here he tottered, King of the Half-Wits.

Crowley buckled in pain, sinking toward the ground, but he managed to straighten upright with difficulty. If it hurt him to be in the midst of the holy ground without direct contact, it would certainly cripple him otherwise.

He staggered forward, thankful to use his spear as a prop to lean upon as he gathered all of his half-wits together and combined them to form one singular Wit. He could not stay for very long at all. Demons weren’t _meant_ to trod there, period—but none of that mattered. If he straggled behind, there wouldn’t be anything left of Aziraphale but a messy stain on the floor.

Crowley put a bit of persuasion into it as he kicked forward, and the door nearest to him flew open despite being battered shut. “Aziraphale!” he cried.

A frightened, middle-aged man cowered near to the back, visibly trembling even from Crowley’s vantage point, and he started to pray frantically, hiding his partially shorn head in-between his arms as he crouched against the ground.

The demon would never be able to find Aziraphale in all this; the monastery was a sprawling affair. Even as Crowley loitered in this room, some bastard could be jabbing the angel over and over and over and—

Wait.

 _“_ You there! _Oi!_ Yes, _you!_ ” Crowley said as the man attempted to crawl toward the door. “I don’t suppose you lot have a library, do you?”

The man continued to mutter verses to himself and Crowley lost his patience, hauling him up from the ground and looking him dead in the face. It was an experience no doubt unpleasant for the monk, as the demon knew he must have looked particularly serpentine in the moment, eyes impossibly large and almost jaundiced in colour. It hardly helped his words escaped as a hiss, and the monk started to sob, both hands clasping to the one that had lifted him.

 _“_ Yes! Please—please—I beg you—”

 _“_ Tell me where it issss,” Crowley said, and the holy man looked up at him, face awash with tears.

 _“_ You go left and—and it’s the last room. Please... _please_...”

Dropping him, Crowley took two steps toward the door before he changed his mind. Swapping his spear back to his right hand, he stuck it through the monk, who shrieked as he fell forward.

The demon pulled his weapon away and, after a second’s pause, the man sat up, feeling frantically at the spot that _must_ have been a fatal wound, only—

 _“_ I recommend that you keep low to the ground and practise being dead,” Crowley said, touching the tip of his spear to the monk’s bald spot and nudging him to lay face down once more upon the floor.

Crowley sprinted out of the room, partly out of a desire to find the angel as quick as he could, time being of the essence, after-all, and partly to keep from touching anything within the church, including the stone beneath his feet.

_Go left, last room._

The words ran in a chant through Crowley’s mind, as if he might slip and forget them otherwise, and he pranced on down the hallway, ignoring the quickly-growing desire to fall to his knees beneath the heavy pressure the monastery exuded.

_Go left, last room._

There it was, blessedly—thankfully—untouched, only this time it took two kicks before the door flung itself open to admit Crowley. The demon put on a layer of nonchalance whenever he encountered the angel—or at least he liked to believe so—but it was difficult to do when it seemed to Crowley as though little bits of him wished to dissolve, like soap left too long in the bath.

He smelled Aziraphale, _felt_ Aziraphale all around the room, but in that particular moment the library appeared deserted. A quick scan showed open books on tables and quills left in ink pots, some thrown to the ground in a mad haste, and Crowley cast his eye toward squat shelves opposite the room.

If he had to wager, he would place money on a big clump of monks piling atop one another like puppies behind the bookshelves, frantically trying to make themselves as unnoticeable as possible. Crowley didn’t have time for this, didn’t have time to sift through the lot and collect his angel, didn’t have time to argue with him and make him see reason, so he shouted.

No, he _wanted_ to shout, but it would be a bad idea indeed. One of the Vikings might be out in the corridor and come in, thinking he needed assistance. _Or_ they might believe that he wanted them to join in with a nice bit of melee-and-murder and had paused to give them a call, subscribing to the belief that the more the merrier.

Crowley hobbled forward and made it so far as the end of the first table before he bowed forward against it, palms flat to the rough-hewn wood, and he grit his teeth together. “Aziraphale!” He whispered.

Nothing.

He hadn’t got it wrong, had he? He _couldn’t_ have—could he?

 _“_ _Aziraphale!_ ” he hissed, hands trembling against the abandoned vellum.

 _“_ ... _Crowley?_ ”

They met eyes, Aziraphale tentatively peeking around the shelf, and Crowley’s chest tightened at the sound of the soft voice.

 _“_ Oh no—oh my—what are you doing here? Oh, my poor dear...you aren’t meant to be here at all.”

 _“_ I’m aware, angel,” Crowley replied as Aziraphale hurried to his side.

 _“_ I mean—in a monastery. It’s consecrated ground!”

 _“_ Yeah? That’s odd. I’ve never had a problem going to church on Sundays,” Crowley drawled sarcastically before straightening, tottering on the spot. “Why are you _here,_ Aziraphale?”

 _“_ My dear boy, it is a monastery. Where else should I go?”

 _“_ I meant _here!_   In this specific one!”

 _“_ You...won’t like the answer I give you,” Aziraphale murmured and Crowley rolled his eyes near to the back of his head, wondering what had attracted him.

 _“_ Angel—”

 _“_ You have to go before you harm yourself,” Aziraphale urged, and Crowley blinked, astounded by his words.

 _“_ _What?_ No, _you_ have to go,” he grabbed the angel’s arm, and Aziraphale glanced back to the shelving. Ah, so he was correct. “Them too. Just—just hurry.”

Aziraphale hesitated, and Crowley gave the angel a slight shove to prompt him into action. “You heard the...man. We had best go while we can.”

 _“_ But he’s—he’s one of _them,_ ” a monk cried, reluctant to trust the demon, and Aziraphale glanced back at Crowley over his shoulder before the demon waved his arms in a wrap-it-up motion.

 _“_ Yes, well, I find that things are rarely quite as they seem,” the angel said quietly.

The monks viewed Crowley with abject suspicion, and he could hardly fault them, stood in their midst with unnatural eyes, equipped to the eye-teeth with weapons, but they believed in Aziraphale. Aziraphale, who unconsciously emanated a sort of warm security, an idea that everything would be all right if one only kept close to his side.

 _“_ Just like that, indeed,” Aziraphle said as he directed the men toward the door.

 _“_ We’ve come in the front, as you do,” Crowley noted helpfully, not liking the acidic look one of the monks offered him—perhaps a little _too_ comfortable in Aziraphale’s presence—and the demon flicked out his tongue to knock him down a peg. “As you do when you essentially leave the latch undone, rather.”

 _“_ They have no need of defence—they are children of God. Go through the back corridor, then,” Aziraphale commanded the holy men.

 _“_ Clearly they have _some_ need, or else their Brothers wouldn’t have big gaping holes in their heads,” Crowley snapped. “You’re indulging them in all this—letting them think if they place their faith in—in Heaven, and God, and all that, then they need not worry.”

 _“_ _No,_ they believe that if they put their faith in God, they will be rewarded. And they will.”

 _“_ With _what?_ ” Crowley cried, watching the last man leave the room while Aziraphale fidgeted at one of the bookshelves. “One of those big gaping holes I mentioned? Look—I’m not arguing with you about this. You have to go—what the hell is that?”

 _“_ It’s a book,” Aziraphale said as he plucked a fat tome from the shelf, carefully avoiding Crowley’s glower while hastening to the demon’s side. “Don’t look at me like that; it’s four hundred years old. Listen it...it was kind of you. To come in here, as you have, bearing pain to save these men.”

 _“_ I didn’t come in here to save them—I came in here to save _you!_ ” Crowley shouted as they reached the door.

Aziraphale stared up at him, astonished, and Crowley realised the angel had _no idea._ All this time, century after century rolling by, the passage of years turning all others to dust and ash around them, and he still did not sense that Crowley cared for him. He need say the word and Crowley would do anything in his power to help him, and it had _nothing_ to do with kindness.

Crowley did not want to further ponder the lengths that he would go to keep the angel safe.

 _“_ Take this; it’s no sword, but it’ll do.” The demon pressed his spear into Aziraphale’s hand, and the angel moved the book, taking it beneath his left arm as he hefted the weapon.

 _“_ You aren’t coming? Crowley, you _must—_ you cannot stay here!” Aziraphale looked down at his hands as though he wished to have a third so that he might hold tight to Crowley.

 _“_ Can’t you hear them? You don’t have much time; I’ll hold them off.”

 _“_ But you have no weapon!”

Crowley whipped the hand-axe from his belt, spinning it through the air. “I find it easier to use this anyway. I’ll be fine, angel.”

 _“_ Crowley—”

 _“_ Jussst _go!_ ” Crowley lost his patience, panic resurging through him at the idea he might have kicked his way through a monastery, found the bloody angel, and lost him anyway because he dithered and worried about fleeing to safety.

Aziraphale hesitated, bright green eyes searching Crowley’s face, and then he darted the direction the monks went. Crowley watched him depart, a sudden loneliness taking up residence beneath his rib cage, the sounds of laughter intermingled with that of screaming causing his skin to crawl.

Crowley hadn’t quite grasped how the world could function as it did. Points of beauty lay wherever one looked, and it wasn’t difficult to find reasons to love—or at least enjoy—walking the earth. And yet, in almost equal measure, waited destruction and cruelty.  Was that the point of it?  Did there need to be a balance?  Without the lurking threat of ill deeds, could good works be appreciated?  Without demons, could there be angels?

Was that Crowley’s purpose?  His acts—and those of the demons who inarguably worked harder at their efforts than he—were they the creatures that feasted upon carrion, eventually leading the way for corpses to turn to flowers?  Crowley didn’t appreciate the metaphor he created, but in the moment, it seemed apt.

 _“_ Where’s your bunch?”

Crowley shifted his weight from his right foot to his left, clutching the axe tighter. “Wasn’t anyone in there,” he replied through his teeth.

The Viking that had popped up offered him a narrow-eyed look, swaggering into the library. Crowley rocked back and forth now from his toes to heels, watching the warrior stride about the room, poking cautiously at a book as though it might leap up and bite him. He peeked next behind the shelf and then rose to his full height, mistrust crossing his features.

 _“_ What’re you doing?” a second fellow asked as the first re-entered the hallway.

 _“_ There’s no one in there.”

 _“_ I seem to recall that being said, yes,” Crowley replied, clenching his jaw as his palms sweated.

 _“_ No one in there? With the books?”

 _“_ There must’ve been, only he let him go. I’ve watched you, you know. You’re not much for killing.”

Resisting the temptation to agree with the man, Crowley contented himself with the unpleasant thought that he could have replaced the human with a demon and they would have said the same thing to him. “Well,” Crowley huffed out with no little effort, dancing where he had taken up his guard, “if we each get slaves, and we get to decide what we do with them—then that was my decision.”

Crowley sometimes wondered if every sentence he spoke was designed solely to be exactly the worst possible one he might utter. Both men’s stances shifted, turning from friendly to hostile in the blink of an eye, and each pointed their spear at him.

The demon did not _want_ to kill them, strictly speaking, but he had no choice. _There is always a choice,_ he thought, and he lifted his lip when the words formed the cadence and tone of the angel’s voice.

 _“_ Oh, shut up,” he said to himself, tipping back and throwing up his round shield to take the brunt of their blows.

Retreating a pace, he swung out with the axe as a warning, forcing one of the men to defend himself. Crowley had no respite, however, as the other promptly lunged at him, and the demon only managed to throw up his shield in the last instant.

He could not maintain his ground, and they pushed him with every step, closing him in nearer and nearer to a wall. The instant they pinned him would be the end of it—already he struggled with the monastery, as it sought to repel him with every breath and every movement—and Crowley waved his axe wildly with a shout.

 _“_ Come on, then! You don’t scare me! I’ve seen things you could never _imagine!_ ”

One Viking lifted his spear to jab into Crowley’s face, and he brought his shield up, the weapon sinking into the wood. Before he could lower it, the second man thrust forward, the blade tearing through the demon’s clothing and drawing along his right side.

Crowley fell to his knees and dropped the shield with a clatter, bowing in on himself with agony. He needed to stand but couldn’t—he needed to _fight_ but couldn’t—and he watched the spear rise up, hanging in the air before it slammed down toward him.

 _“_ _No!_   I won’t let you harm him!”

Suddenly Aziraphale filled the space, throwing himself between Crowley and the men, the spear burying itself in the angel’s book instead of the demon. “Oh, bugger!” He said, and before the Vikings could respond, he snapped his fingers, both men disappearing.

 _“_ Wha—? Aziraphale? What are you doing here? I told you to _go!_ ”

 _“_ Come on! We must _hurry!_ ”

 _“_ That’s what _I_ told _you!_ ”

Aziraphale’s gentle hands helped him to stand, tracing along his sides, lingering over the wound he had been dealt. “Oh, they—they did this to you.”

His flesh knit together at the touch of the angel’s fingers, warmth flushing through his skin beneath Aziraphale’s palm.

 _“_ I couldn’t leave you behind, you know,” Aziraphale said quietly. As he slipped easily beneath Crowley’s arm, giving him support and fitting against him almost as though he belonged, the demon wished that he could stay there—stay with Aziraphale.

 _“_ Won’t you be in trouble for this?” Crowley murmured as they staggered onward. Aziraphale seemed to be all around, soothing him without effort—without meaning to—and Crowley wondered if he even realised that he did it.

 _“_ For sending them away?  Well, I rather imagine not.  Saving a handful of monks—I’m certain I’ll get a commendation for it.”

 _“_ You saved a demon, more like,” Crowley said, the words dripping from the corner of his mouth.

Aziraphale’s fingers dug into Crowley’s waist. “Yes, well, that too, but I can hardly help it if you slipped in amongst them, now can I?”

 _“_ Is that a _lie,_  angel?” Crowley wondered. “What will it be next? Robbery? Arson?”

 _“_ Not before tea-time, surely.”

Crowley surprised himself with a laugh, and Aziraphale smiled tentatively. “Hang on a moment! Where’s the spear?”

 _“_ Spear?” Aziraphale blinked, baffled, and they stepped out together into the sunshine.

 _“_ Yes, the spear I gave to you! Where is it?”

Once more Aziraphale gripped him tighter. “Well, I...I...”

 _“_ You _didn’t!_ ” Crowley said, positively delighted, and Aziraphale ducked his head so that Crowley could only see the blond tufts of his hair. “ _Again?!_ ”

 _“_ They needed _something_ with which to protect themselves!” he cried.

An undeniable flood of affection for the angel washed over Crowley, and he leaned into Aziraphale even though he no longer needed his assistance. The angel, Crowley noticed, did not rebuff him, and the demon allowed himself a smile as they scurried down the hill to join the band of monks that survived the slaughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! Notes, eh?
> 
> -Lindisfarne is a real place, and it is absolutely called "Holy Island". I don't know if it was *then*, but let's roll with it? The Viking attack that occurred there is generally thought to be the beginning of the Viking Age. It specifically said that the Vikings destroyed the monastery AND its library, so possibly the library was in a separate place, but I just combined them (if so) for the sake of convenience.  
> -That bit with Charlemagne was real; he basically said convert or die.  
> -Vikings were armed to the TEETH. They usually had a spear and a shield--that seems to be standard kit--and then had either a blade or a battle-axe, if not both.  
> -I wanted to explore Crowley in a holy setting because the church scene in the show was, of course, phenomenal, and I wondered if it would hurt him more to be relatively "young" and storming into a super religious place.  
> -I edit after posting (like a fool) so if you see mistakes I will probably get to them. Eventually.
> 
> The next bit should be up in a couple days or so. It's even longer than this one and Aziraphale has a big part in it. I hope you enjoyed this and continue to stick with me!


	5. 898 AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley engages in a sword fight (or two).

_898 AD_

_“_ Do you have a dagger?” Crowley asked, and Suthen promptly pulled the weapon from the belt cinched about her waist, handing it over without comment. The demon balanced the blade on his fingertip, whistling to himself.

 _“_ You’re certain you’ll win?” the woman pulled her cloak tighter around herself as she viewed him with a rather suspicious eye.

“Sure,” Crowley said easily, scrambling when he nearly dropped the knife. He caught it and leaned back into the thick root of the tree with an air of nonchalance.

The woman’s suspicion took a turn into leery. “Right,” she replied slowly.

She had nothing to fear; Crowley could say with reasonable assurance that he had wielded a sword for far longer than any challenger who may rise to fight him, and, should he need a little assistance, a hole could open up to twist the man’s heel or an inconvenient root could catch his foot.

The people circled round them, eager to spectate and liven up their afternoon with the possibility of a bloodbath. They chattered amongst themselves, nudging and glancing around, and Crowley wondered if it would be wise to try to throw the knife into the air and attempt to catch it by the handle.

No, best not.

Instead, Crowley spun the dagger against the bark, digging bit by bit into the tree. He needed things to go according to plan. With a capitalised P. Not _that_ plan, but his own personal Plan. He had two of them, in fact.

The first: Keep Hell out of his business.

The second: Impress the angel. _The_ angel, not “an” angel. Impress _the_ angel.

Both plans offered him the same level of success, which was to say: none. Aziraphale would drink with him—would _absolutely_ eat with him, especially if Crowley offered to pay, which he nearly always did—but drifted just as easily away, protesting and wringing his hands, backtracking until they parted ways.

And _Hell._ He had not failed, necessarily—he had not failed at all, really. It was just that he made an error. Claiming that he solely caused several wars and indirectly encouraged a few natural disasters brought him the accolades he wanted, but they expected him to maintain that same level of accomplishment. Reporting back and telling them that he had planted temptation in a priest here, urged thievery in a baker there—it was all well and good for _other_ demons, but he had inadvertently raised the standard and paid the price for it.

The circle parted down the middle, opening to admit the second duellist as he rode up on a proud little pony, and Crowley stabbed the dagger into the root of the tree, sinking it up to the hilt.

“Sorry—so sorry. Lost track of time.”

 _“_ _Angel?_ ” Crowley leapt up from the ground as though scalded, stumbling and then pressing his palm into the tree trunk to regain his cool composure.

 _“_ You know him?” Suthen cried, and Crowley waved his hand at her.

 _“_ No, no, of course not.”

 _“_ _Crowley?!_ ” Aziraphale sputtered as he hopped down from the horse.

 _“_ Well, yes. A bit,” Crowley amended.

 _“_ I need a word with you,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley smirked.

 _“_ Just the one?” he wondered, and at the angel’s frown he turned to the expectant crowd, holding his hands up. “It’ll be just a moment, then we’ll get on with it.”

Crowley sauntered leisurely after Aziraphale as though they were on some slow gambol through the countryside—really, wouldn’t _that_ be lovely?—and he stopped near to Aziraphale while remaining a decent distance from the makeshift fighters’ ring.

 _“_ What the _hell_ are you up to?” Aziraphale hissed, and when Crowley raised his eyebrow, he began to look around himself. “What? What is it?”

 _“_ This,” Crowley said, plucking at the angel’s golden tunic. “is an eyesore.”

 _“_ It _isn’t;_ it’s beautiful,” Aziraphale pouted.

 _“_ It’s definitely on the nose,” Crowley argued, and Aziraphale gave a tip of his head, agreeing that it might be that.

 _“_ Look—you are _distracting_ me!” Aziraphale buffeted Crowley’s hand away from his shirt-front, brow furrowing as he stared up at him. “Why are you here?”

 _“_ Same as you—to fight.”

 _“_ Oh, this _is_ preposterous,” Aziraphale crossed his arms, turning slightly from Crowley. “I can’t fight you.”

 _“_ Why is it any different? We’ve been doing it for millennia now; what’s another skirmish?”

Aziraphale kept silent.

 _“_ Well?”

 _“_ You know that isn’t true,” Aziraphale said, glancing up out of the corner of his eye at Crowley.

 _“_ What isn’t?”

 _“_ This—us. We don’t—we don’t _fight._ I’ve seen angels and demons...you know... _get into it._ That isn’t us.”

 _“_ We’ve had debates! _Heated_ debates! About—about artists who get closest to how Heaven looked, or...or who has the best wine.”

 _“_ Yes, _precisely._ It’s all just words, just a bit of foolishness. _They_ mean to discorporate—or worse. We’ve never been like that, not even in the beginning.”

Crowley tapped his foot upon the ground impatiently. “Well, we have to do _something;_ King Domnall’s men are out there, too, looking to officially declare the winner. I imagine they won’t give us much more time before they send someone to bring us back.”

 _“_ Fine. Let’s do it. We’ll settle this; I will win, of course—”

 _“_ What do you mean ‘of course’,” Crowley did quotes in the air, mimicking Aziraphale’s voice. “And _don’t_ say something along the lines of ‘because Good always triumphs over Evil’.”

 _“_ I wasn’t going to!” Aziraphale said, looking as though he had been poised to say just that, in exactly those words.

 _“_ You _were._ ”

 _“_ No! I am skilled, that’s all.”

Crowley held his arms out, rocking on his heels as he spun in a circle. “D’you think I’ve done nothing at all these thousands of years, angel? So’m _I!_ ”

 _“_ But...wait a moment. You—you’re going to _marry_ that girl?” Aziraphale turned back to Crowley, heavy disapproval written all over his face. “That really is too much.”

 _“_ Not hardly,” Crowley scoffed, squirming a bit on the spot at the idea of it. “She hired me to say that I was.”

 _“_ She _what?_ ”

 _“_ It’s...” Crowley wriggled his fingers in the air, trying to come up with the word. “Chicanery. That’s the word.”

 _“_ It’s foolish, more like. What are you playing at?”

 _“_ She’s a princess, right? She hasn’t got any brothers or other siblings, and her father’s getting up in the years. If it comes down to it, she’ll be queen. She doesn’t want to be _princess,_ let alone taking a step upward. So she sought someone who could help her with her predicament, and here I am. We’re _madly_ in love, and I’ve challenged the fellow she’s arranged to marry to a duel. What’s-his-face.”

 _“_ Out of the goodness of your heart…?” Aziraphale said suspiciously, and Crowley twisted his face up as though he had tasted something particularly nasty.

 _“_ Don’t be an idiot. If she runs away with me— _appears_ to run away with me—everything’s gone up in smoke.  Who gets the throne next?  The cousin?  That man over there who’d quite like a go at it? Bound to kick off no less than two skirmishes, possibly three.”

 _“_ How did you convince them to agree to this in the first place?”

 _“_ They think I’m noble blooded,” Crowley began, ticking off on his fingers, “it’s a way to get her to shut up, and, finally, they’re awfully fond of their honour. Now _that’s_ foolish, angel.”

Aziraphale covered his face with his hands, groaning, and Crowley strolled in a loop around the angel, narrowing his circle as he orbited around him, his hands clasped behind his back.

 _“_ How did _you_ find yourself doing this? Doesn’t seem your style—bit flashy.”

Aziraphale looked up through his fingers at Crowley. “Cináed—that is, her betrothed—is more of a, er, learned man,” he said, dropping his arms back to his sides.

 _“_ You mean coward.”

The angel made an appreciative noise. “That too, I suppose. They heard I was skilled with a sword, and hired me in his stead. Perfectly above-board and all that, taking on a substitute.”

 _“_ And you have a sword, do you? And you know how to use it?” Crowley leaned to the side to spot the weapon, and Aziraphale clapped his hand to the hilt of it, face flaming red.

 _“_ Ha _ha,_ that’s very clever.”

 _“_ And you haven’t given it away yet? I _am_ surprised.”

 _“_ That only happened the _once!_ ” Aziraphale cried, holding up his finger to add weight to his argument.

 _“_ _Twice,_ ” Crowley corrected him.

 _“_ No, the second was a spear. It doesn’t count,” the angel sniffed, and when Crowley laughed, he smiled. “We really must be serious, my dear. What will we do?”

Crowley planted himself directly in front of Aziraphale, and when he rested his hands on his shoulders, the angel jumped at the touch. “You’ll throw the fight.”

 _“_ _What?!_ ”

 _“_ Throw the fight,” Crowley repeated, and Aziraphale jerked away from him.

 _“_ You want me to lose?”

 _“_ _No._ You can lose at something while trying very hard; I want you to lose while trying not very hard at all, ie— _throw the duel._ ”

 _“_ I’m meant to be good with swords! It’s what I was tasked to do!”

 _“_ So what?” Crowley shrugged. “How many kids have been born to be, I don’t know, smiths or butchers, and then realise they’re better at—at catching butterflies?”

 _“_ None, I imagine,” Aziraphale remarked dryly, and Crowley chose to ignore That Remark.

 _“_ You can start off at something and find out you’re terrible at it, then become something else. Do you really want to pin her into place? Have her push out a couple of children, then die young, maybe thirty, maybe forty years old?”

 _“_ What’s the alternative?”

Crowley threw up his hands. “I don’t know, that’s the beauty of it! She could die a week from today, but at least it was _her_ decision. Isn’t that what you always say? It’s her choice?”

Aizraphale fretted. “Why don’t _you_ throw it? Or...is it because you _do_ care about what happens to her? Deep down inside, you are—”

 _“_ Not one more word, angel, I mean it,” Crowley said, taking up pacing as a nice hobby, and Aziraphale’s smile fell.

 _“_ You really are cross about it? I was only joking.”

 _“_ I haven’t been doing so well, up here,” Crowley admitted, rubbing at his face and wondering why he wished to confide in Aziraphale at all.

 _“_ Oh?” the angel tilted his head, suddenly interested in the promise of gossip. “What do you mean?”

 _“_ You tell Hell you’ve done this war or planted the idea to invade that city, and they grow to expect it. When things grow quiet, and you tell them the truth, they’re not necessarily impressed.”

 _“_ Ah. Well.” Aziraphale replied helpfully. “Have they sent you a letter, then? Told you to buck up and—and put your back into it?”

 _“_ That’s unlikely,” Crowley said sarcastically, and the angel winced. “No, but they may come to see what the issue is. Or...”

 _“_ Or…?” Aziraphale prodded, attempting to unspool the answer from Crowley.

 _“_ Or bring me down again to see if it can be fixed.”

 _“_ Oh, they wouldn’t,” Aziraphale said dismissively, but paused in the absence of Crowley’s agreement. “...Would they?”

The demon shrugged listlessly, strolling past where the angel stood. “We ought to go now before they suspect we’re brokering some deal. _I_ will probably win anyway, so it isn’t anything to worry about.”

 _“_ Wait.”

Crowley turned on his heel to face him once more, and Aziraphale swallowed.

 _“_ I. I’ll do it. I’ll do the thing. Throw it, I mean; I’ll let you win.”

 _“_ You aren’t scared it’s a trick?” Crowley raised his eyebrows, and Aziraphale fidgeted with the hem of his tunic.

 _“_ Well. No. I think I’ve come to know you. A bit. Not entirely, but...you seem sincere.”

 _“_ And you aren’t revelling in the idea a demon might be gone, at least temporarily? You lot would have the upper hand and all.” Crowley knew that he prodded, perhaps pushed further than he should—further than was wise—but he couldn’t help it.

 _“_ No, it...” Aziraphale paused, embarrassed, and shifted his weight first from one foot to the other. He opened his mouth, shut it, then changed his mind. “What if Hell sent someone worse, you know? All doom and gloom and _rather_ serious about the job? I couldn’t cope.”

Crowley sensed that wasn’t _quite_ what the angel intended to say, but let the topic rest as they made their way back to the ring.

 _“_ And this was her idea? You didn’t plant it in her?”

 _“_ Sometimes you don’t have to do a thing at all,” the demon said, and he realised that Aziraphale measured his step to match Crowley’s more relaxed gait, which pleased him far more than he was willing to admit. “Humans enjoy doing bad deeds all on their own; it’s why I generally haven’t had trouble stretching the truth.”

 _“_ Lying,” Aziraphale said pointedly. “But I see your point. And this bad deed of hers is...merely that she wishes to be free?”

Crowley tipped his shoulders up. “Suppose so, yeah.”

 _“_ That...doesn’t sound bad at all.”

 _“_ Well, no, but it’s what comes after that is. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, after-all.”

Aziraphale frowned, looking up at Crowley. “I rather like what you’re doing better, if I must be honest.”

Crowley wagged his head first to the right, then to the left, pondering. “I believe you must be. Angel and all that.”

 _“_ Do we play to first blood?”

 _“_ I don’t think _that’s_ necessary,” Crowley said, words falling out of him far more calmly than he felt at the angel’s innocent question. He immediately rejected the idea of harming Aziraphale, even if it _was_ all for show.

 _“_ No, I suppose not,” Aziraphale hummed, and he patted Crowley on the shoulder. “Best of luck to you, then.”

 _“_ Right,” Crowley murmured, distracted by Aziraphale’s hand lingering on his shoulder, and he watched the angel walk off ahead of him to take up his position opposite.

When they made the agreement, Crowley imagined their spat would last a couple minutes and it would finish. He would put a bit of show into it, a little pageantry—people _like_ pageantry—but not make anything nearing what learned scholars would term as ‘effort’.

He had not, it seemed, made an allowance for Aziraphale.

Arizaphale countered him at every instance, swept him here and there about the space, coming dangerously close to involving the audience in their bout. When Crowley gave him a look that said ‘what the _heaven_ are you doing?!’ when his lips could not, Aziraphale merely smiled sweetly and nearly removed a swatch off Crowley’s tunic as a keepsake.

It went on like this for far longer than Crowley liked, but then Aziraphale gave him an opening, offering him a rather broad wink in case the demon missed it, and Crowley gratefully took it, pointing his sword at the centre of Aziraphale’s chest.

The crowd cheered and grumbled in nearly equal measure at the outcome of the duel, and Aziraphale draped his arm along his brow, lowering his sword. “O! _Alas!_ I gave it my all, and yet I have been verily vanquished by an opponent—”

Crowley held up his hand and dropped it, indicating that Aziraphale ought to dial it back by about fifty percent.

 _“_ By a—a worthy opponent,” Aziraphale stammered, catching Crowley’s note on his performance and blushing. “ _Damn!_ And so forth.”

 _“_ Well met,” Crowley said quickly, hoping to take attention away from the angel’s stilted acting, offering him his hand to shake. When Aziraphale took it, Crowley leaned forward to whisper in his ear. “About a mile from here to the west is a crossroads. Meet me there.”

* * *

Crowley sat on a rather large stone rolled up in the crook of the road, possibly for use as a place-marker. He bathed in the rays of the sun, eyes closed in pleasure as he lolled on the rock. He heard the horse approaching but didn’t move, only opening one eye when Aziraphale hopped down and spoke to him.

 _“_ That went rather well, don’t you think?”

 _“_ Alas! Alackaday! I think I may die,” Crowley keened and flopped bonelessly into the rock.

“All right, yes. Perhaps I did overdo it. I only wanted to make certain it turned out right. Where is the lady?”

Crowley propped himself up on his elbows with a yawn. “She left. I told her to keep the horse I had. Accidentally forgot the coin she paid me; it’s still tied in a bag on the saddle.”

 _“_ Mhm,” Aziraphale said. “An accident.”

Crowley waved his hand at him. “What was that earlier, though? I thought you were going to throw it!”

 _“_ I did, didn’t I?” Aziraphale asked, baffled.

 _“_ Yes, but you didn’t make it easy!” Crowley grumbled, and Aziraphale bounced slightly on his heels.

 _“_ Oh? I didn’t?” he asked, his innocence so false it barely registered. “I thought that you said you’d best me, were we to play it fair.”

 _“_ I did. And I would,” Crowley sniffed, and Aziraphale tipped his head.

 _“_ _Would_ you? I suppose we’ll never know.”

 _“_ We could see.”

 _“_ I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Aziraphale rejected immediately, and Crowley stood, stretching.

 _“_ Aren’t you curious?”

 _“_ Well...” Aziraphale hesitated, and Crowley kicked the ball into motion, drawing out his sword.

 _“_ You won’t stick me, will you? Run me through?”

 _“_ Goodness me! Of course not.” Aziraphale shuddered, horrified, and became quite focused on tugging out his weapon. “I could never.”

Crowley blinked, not anticipating the response. “Ah. A relief.”

 _“_ What about you?” the angel asked as they began to circle each other.

 _“_ Skewer an angel? Possibly. Wouldn’t know until the situation came up on me. Skewer _you?_ I’d prefer not to, really.”

 _“_ Oh! Why, thank you!” Aziraphale said with a bright smile, as though Crowley had just offered him a fresh biscuit instead, and the demon’s knees went weak beneath the sight of the angel’s cheery expression.

 _“_ What do you think our sides would say, if they watched us?”

 _“_ I prefer not to dwell on that,” the angel said sharply, but when he caught sight of Crowley’s expression, he relented. “I...suppose they’d think it foolish.”

 _“_ Or tell us to get on with the bloodshed,” Crowley said as he jabbed at Aziraphale.

 _“_ That too,” the angel agreed, blocking it easily.

Every attempt that Crowley made to score an opening was promptly stopped, and to add a dash of insult to injury, Aziraphale began to encroach on his space, driving him step by step backward.

 _“_ No need to restrain yourself on my account; I won’t break that easily.”

 _“_ Ah, you realised?” Crowley lied.

 _“_ Something like that,” Aziraphale trilled, and Crowley suspected strongly that the angel saw straight through him.

Crowley regained ground before promptly losing it again, and he wondered how far he could retreat before striking a dead end against a tree, or tripping over a root in his haste to avoid the sing of steel as it sliced through the air.

 _“_ If you get tired of this, we can always stop,” Aziraphale said pleasantly, and Crowley’s strong suspicion crossed into definitive knowledge that the angel toyed with him.

 _“_ You are a _bastard!_ ” Crowley said, and Aziraphale tutted.

 _“_ There’s no reason at all for that kind of language.”

 _“_ You tricked me!” The demon waved his sword wildly, losing a bit of his patience as he sought to keep the angel at bay.

 _“_ Tricked you! As I recall, I _told_ you that I am skilled. It isn’t my fault that you chose to ignore my warning.”

 _“_ Yes, well, you—you don’t look as though that would be the truth. You look soft.”

Aziraphale stabbed out, stopping a hair’s breadth from Crowley’s throat, and Crowley went slack as the angel held his position for a moment before standing straighter. He pressed his blade just beneath Crowley’s chin and gently tipped it upward until the demon met his gaze. “I did not trick you, Crowley, nor would I ever do so. Instead, I _surprised_ you.”

 _“_ You—it’s—possibly. Yes.” Crowley managed finally, mouth dry as kindling as a heat curled in his stomach.

Aziraphale dropped his fighter’s stance, and slipped his weapon back into its sheath. Crowley mirrored the action, hand trembling as he did so. “I’d prefer if you ceased the sword jokes.”

 _“_ Not _all_ of them!” Crowley protested, and Aziraphale yielded with a soft smile.

 _“_ Fine—but _only_ if they’re humourous.”

The angel clambered then onto his horse, whatever grace he had possessed during both duels quickly leaking from him like ink spilling across paper, and Crowley looked up at him. “You’re right, you know.”

 _“_ Oh?” Aziraphale lifted a brow.

 _“_ You did surprise me,” Crowley said, and the angel gave a slight nod of his chin.

 _“_ Ah. That. It’s understandable. Sometimes I look at you, and—you’re a demon.”

 _“_ I hadn’t noticed,” Crowley replied archly.

 _“_ What I _mean_ is—you don’t seem it. Being in your company is—is dangerous,” Aziraphale said, and the words, while undoubtedly true, still hurt Crowley. The angel hurried hastily on. “It’s—dangerous in that it seems too easy. Too simple. If I didn’t think about it, if I didn’t pay any attention to it, I might blink one day and realise I’d spent months with you. Possibly years.”

 _“_ That would be a bad thing?”

 _“_ It wouldn’t be a _good_ thing. Not for either of us.”

 _“_ Is that what you feel? Or is that what you _think_ you _ought_ to feel?”

Aziraphale looked away, choosing not to answer, and Crowley sighed, rubbing at his face.

 _“_ Well. I suppose I owe you a favour for earlier.”

 _“_ For trouncing you?” Aziraphale asked, playing rather badly once more at innocence.

 _“_ I’m glad you’re leaving because you’re being insufferable.”

The angel wriggled on his horse, wrestling with some inner turmoil before conquering it. “Are you...planning to be in Scotia for very long?”

 _“_ Yes, actually; I quite like it here. Why?”

Aziraphale paused. “Where would you wish to go?” he asked quietly, and Crowley gaped a bit before his mind leapt into action, _shouting_ at him that he ought to say something lest the angel abruptly decide against it.

 _“_ It’s—wherever,” he replied, trying at nonchalance. “I don’t have any plans.”

 _“_ Ah! Excellent! Neither do I at present. Come on up; I’ll give you a ride.”

Crowley scrambled up the horse with even less coordination than Aziraphale, who tsked.

 _“_ This isn’t a permanent thing.”

 _“_ Of course not,” Crowley agreed quickly.

 _“_ I’m only doing it because you helped that poor woman out. It was very—”

 _“_ It wasn’t _anything,_ ” the demon hissed, cutting him off in the midst of his sentence. “Shut up!”

He couldn’t see Aziraphale’s face, but Crowley didn’t miss the shake of his shoulders that denoted silent laughter. “Hold on, then; I would hate for you to fall and break something.”

Crowley automatically moved to obey the angel, his body twitching into motion before his brain could even contemplate the command, but then he hesitated.

 _“_...Crowley? Are you all right?”

He carefully—incredibly awkwardly—put his arms around Aziraphale, suddenly cognisant of even the tiniest details. He had never held the angel this close before—had never held him at all, _obviously_ —and he could feel him breathing lightly beneath the palm of his hand.

He felt, too, the warmth from the angel’s body. Something within Crowley always reacted quicker, easier, to heat, and he had never quite figured out whether it had to do with his brief past spent in the garden or his subsequent fall.

 _“_ Perhaps hold me a little lower,” Aziraphale murmured, and Crowley jumped.

 _“_ _W-what?_ ” he said, his voice not _quite_ a screech.

 _“_ Your hands are somewhat in the way,” the angel said, and he pulled them down, drawing them from his chest to rest instead against his stomach. “That’s better.”

 _“_ Oh,” Crowley replied articulately. “Sorry.”

 _“_ It’s no bother!” Aziraphale chirped blithely. “Tell me if you need a break, my dear, but otherwise—we best be off.”

The angel nudged the horse into what would best be described as a carefree amble, and Crowley shut his eyes, acutely aware that Aziraphale’s left hand still clasped his wrist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! Notes, then:
> 
> -I can't recall if demons don't get on well with animals or not. There wasn't anything negatively shown in the show (so far as I can remember), so I'm running with what I've done and you can't stop me!  
> -I took the woman's name and her betrothed from names of the period. It took me FOREVER to find a woman's name from near to that time--go figure, right?  
> -The Scottish King is a real person by the name of Domnall mac Causantín. There *was* a crisis whenever he was killed in battle. The throne passed to his cousin, then possibly to a person who ruled for "half a day" and finally to his son, who was "probably" born while his father was still alive. I made the woman up, but thought I could stick her in nicely amidst all this madness.  
> -I had Crowley ask to meet Aziraphale at the crossroads because Robert Johnson, a famous blues singer of the 20th century, supposedly met the devil at a crossroads and sold his soul for musical talent.  
> -For the clothing, I looked at this guide that specifically referenced the Book of Kells, which is Irish, but Irish/Scottish were almost interchangeable at the time, and the period was roughly the same as the one I used. Crowley says Aziraphale's clothing is a bit on the nose--and Aziraphale agrees--because in the book, it shows the colours of clothing angels wore, gold being one of them.  
> -Finally: at this point in history, Ireland and Scotland were often referred to as Scotia in a general term. I've placed Aziraphale and Crowley in the Scotland part of Scotia, and I thought it would be funny to have Crowley like Scotland, given his actor's provenance.
> 
> That's it, I think! I have the other bit done already; it'll be up in a few days, probably. It's even bigger than this one. WOW, right? Hope you all enjoy!


	6. 1125 AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley sees a play (or two)!

_1125 AD_

Crowley liked holidays—as an outsider looking in, of course. Most festivities focused on keeping close to one’s family, something which Crowley did not possess. Friends, too, were a part of that—something else that the demon did not have in great abundance. He made _acquaintances_ with people he found interesting, or humourous, but they knew nothing at all about him. He would have been lonely if he didn’t have better things to do, and he sauntered about the little village, amusing himself with the sights.

A couple pigs wandered brazenly about, nosing around in the dirt for any dropped morsels of food, and they ignored those who told them to move or slapped their rumps, grunting but refusing to budge a whit.

Crowley briefly pondered how nice it would be, being a pig. Nobody expected you to kill, or tempt, or generally ruin a person’s life—or day, at the very least. All they wanted you to do was grow fat. Of course there was the butchering bit, which seemed unpleasant, but apart from that—a good life.

A pack of children weaved through the clustered groups, holding hands and forming a chain so as not to be separated from one another, and they danced along the path, singing and laughing as they skipped past. Crowley smiled.

Villagers peddled the food they calculated as surplus, hoping to make a few extra coins, and some had cooked the spare to sell or share. The scent of roasting meat hung thick in the air. Breads. Fruit. Flowers.

Something else, too.

Something familiar, something that put a hook behind Crowley’s ribs and gave it a gentle tug before he even recognised it.

He turned on his heel and found Aziraphale directly behind him, hunched a bit, and whenever the angel realised he had been spotted, he straightened.

 _“_ I had meant to sneak up on you and shout ‘boo!’”

Crowley lifted one eyebrow. “Boo?”

 _“_ It—the humans do it, you know,” Aziraphale said quickly, with a blush. “I cannot tell you how many times they’ve startled me.”

 _“_ What’s that you’ve got there?” Crowley nodded toward Aziraphale’s hands, and the angel gave a pleased wriggle.

 _“_ Here you go! Try it!” He carefully held his right hand out, balancing a flat piece of hard bread in the shape of a saucer, on top of which rested some type of meat in a dark gravy sauce.

 _“_ I’m not hungry; you have it,” Crowley rejected politely, and Aziraphale lifted his left hand to show an identical portion.

 _“_ I have my own, and I bought it _for_ you. Try it!” he insisted again, nearly prodding the demon with the food, and Crowley accepted it if only to get him to stop.

They walked side-by-side then, and Crowley listened to the angel as he pointed out each little makeshift stand, hardly pausing to eat as he kept up a steady stream of conversation. Crowley watched the way that his face lit up, and how easily a smile surfaced to his lips, brought forth by the smallest of items or the tiniest of actions. He followed the gesture of Aziraphale’s hands, and the line of his soft eyes, and allowed himself to enjoy being in the angel’s presence.

 _“_ You ought to eat it,” Aziraphale said, breaking Crowley from his thoughts, and the demon was surprised that he had noticed he hadn’t taken a single bite.

 _“_ Oh—it isn’t bad,” he admitted when he bowed to peer pressure, peeling off a piece with his fingers. It came apart easily, and the tender meat melted on his tongue.

 _“_ Don’t act so surprised that I know what I’m talking about,” Aziraphale replied loftily.

 _“_ I wager you would know better than anyone else,” Crowley remarked sarcastically, and the angel frowned.

 _“_ You shouldn’t speak with food in your mouth.”

 _“_ Sorry,” Crowley said after putting another piece of goose flesh in his mouth to better mar his words, and he did not miss the quick smile the angel tried to hide for propriety’s sake.

 _“_ Why is it that you’re here, Crowley? Do you mean to start an epidemic?”

 _“_ Have I _ever_ started an epidemic?” the demon countered easily.

 _“_ I wouldn’t know; I’m not privy to everything you do,” Aziraphale said coolly.

Collecting the remainder of gravy from his makeshift plate upon his finger, the angel licked it away. It was only when Aziraphale glanced at Crowley and frowned did the demon realise that he stared, and Aziraphale touched a hand first to his cheek and then nearer to his lips. “Have I got something on my face? Do tell me—I don’t want to appear silly.”

 _“_ You look fine,” Crowley said, perhaps a little too nonchalantly as the angel began to fret and rub at a spot that did not exist. The demon used his free hand to grip Aziraphale by the wrist and lower his arm. “You look _fine._ ”

 _“_ Yes, well, you were giving me a strange look; what was I supposed to think?” Aziraphale muttered. “And you never answered me before—what it is that you’re doing here.”

 _“_ Nothing,” Crowley shrugged, and Aziraphale narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “What?”

 _“_ That doesn’t sound like your lot. You—you’re always up to _something._ ”

 _“_ Are _you_ up to something?”

 _“_ No!” Aziraphale cried, as though the very idea wounded him. “And if I was it would—it would be something _good._ ”

 _“_ Ah. Like a Crusade?” Crowley wondered innocently. “Nothing good-er than over a million people dying, I suppose.”

 _“ ‘_ Good-er’ isn’t even a word.”

 _“_ It is. I’ve just said it,” Crowley argued. “Words have to start somewhere; that one started with me, just now.”

 _“_ This is ridiculous,” Aziraphale rolled his eyes. “As if to say _your_ side didn’t have a hand in it. Admit it!”

Crowley had By Coincidence shovelled the entire remaining portion of goose into his mouth, and he pointed toward it to indicate that polite society deemed it to be Rather A Bad Show Indeed to speak while eating.

Aziraphale stopped walking and looked up at him. “I can wait you out, my dear. I am very patient; I must be if I’ve put up with your company for all these years.”

Crowley teetered along the edge between pressing the angel’s buttons and truly annoying him before swallowing and sighing with a shake of his head. “A holy crusade? A _holy_ crusade, and you think I have a hand in it?”

 _“_ Yes! The Holy Land was seized.”

 _“_ It was seized _before_ the Crusade; the Crusade meant to take it back again. Which it did,” Crowley reminded him.

 _“_ Yes, _precisely!_ ” Aziraphale lifted his finger into the air. “It could have been Hell’s plan to—to—to do something fiendish with it. Raze it, or—or have men profane it.”

 _“_ But it was called by the Pope, wasn’t it? It’s the Pope that has to announce those sorts of things, isn’t it? It can’t be just a king.” Crowley tilted his head, a slow smile crossing his face. “Are you saying that the _Pope_ —”

 _“_ _No,_ I am _not!_ ” Aziraphale said hastily, face tripping rather quickly into a crimson colour. “But that isn’t to say your lot couldn’t have...have influenced him.”

Crowley’s eyes widened. “Tempted the Pope into doing evil? That _would_ be a feather in any of our wings. I think Hell would leave me alone for a good thousand years or so if I convinced the Pope to sin.”

 _“_ I don’t like this talk,” Aziraphale said decisively, suddenly bursting back into motion and scurrying ahead, and Crowley bounded forward, catching up with him in a single long-legged stride.

 _“_ You were the one who brought it up, angel!”

 _“_ No, _you_ did. ‘Nothing good-er than over a million people dying, I suppose,’ “ Aziraphale mimicked his voice, and Crowley tutted.

 _“_ I don’t think ‘good-er’ is a word, is it?”

Aziraphale gave him a venomous stare that might have killed a man.

 _“_ Aziraphale...”

 _“_ He offered remission of sin, Crowley! Do you understand what that implies?” Aziraphale said desperately. “No matter what they’ve done! Or—or what they _may_ do, on the road to the Holy Land. Think of all that was forgiven in one swoop, all the _evil,_ and he turned a blind eye to it to build an army!"

Crowley smiled.

 _“_ I don’t see what you find amusing,” Aziraphale said wearily.

 _“_ You’ve changed,” Crowley said, speaking over Aziraphale’s squawk of protestation. “You _have!_   I recall the angel who stood by and watched a benevolent God flood a whole collection of people. Here you are now, questioning it.”

 _“_ I’m not—” Aziraphale leaned closer to Crowley, lowering his voice as though there were angels all about, just waiting to pounce on him for admitting he did not follow blindly in step with the rest of them. “I’m not questioning anything, and especially not... _You Know Who._ I’m only saying it isn’t right, what he did. I am allowed to criticise the Pope.”

 _“_ Are you though?” Crowley tilted his head thoughtfully. “He’s put there by God.”

 _“_ He isn’t,” Aziraphale puffed his cheeks out in irritation. “It’s the cardinals that choose and you know it.”

 _“_ Eh, possibly,” Crowley admitted. “But we didn’t have anything to do with it. It’s all on your lot.”

 _“_ But _we_ didn’t have anything to do with it either!” Aziraphale cried, and then touched a fluttering hand to his temple. “Oh—oh no. All those people, dead, and there was no purpose in it.”

 _“_ Doesn’t that ever make you cross?” Crowley wondered, and saw a pauper to his right.

The man rested upon the ground, his back against the wall of a building behind him. Crowley noted the tattered remains of his clothing and his dirty, blackened feet, and offered his trencher to him.

 _“_ Thank-you...” the man whispered, taking the bread with shaking hands.

Crowley looked to Aziraphale and found the expression in his eyes soft as he watched the demon. “What?”

 _“_ Nothing, my dear,” he chirped, also giving up his makeshift plate to the beggar.

 _“_ I was finished!” Crowley hissed, and Aziraphale patted his arm.

 _“_ I know.”

 _“_ You never answered me,” Crowley said, attempting to divert the conversation from his action as they began to stroll again, and Aziraphale walked closer to him, their arms nearly brushing with every step.

 _“_ About…?”

 _“_ That Crusade business—what do you think about them doing it in your name? Oh, you get a loon every now and again running ‘round, ranting and raving that Satan made him do something absolutely _bonkers,_ but isn’t it worse for you angels? To slaughter and invoke Heaven’s name while doing so?”

Aziraphale frowned. “I don’t even like it when _we_ do it, Crowley. I wish that there was another way.”

 _“_ Mmm,” Crowley said appreciatively, and Aziraphale suddenly grabbed his arm, pointing to a crowd of people seated on logs drawn up to act as benches.

 _“_ Oh, _look!_ They’re going to put on a miracle play!”

 _“_ Blech,” Crowley stuck out his tongue, pulling his lip up. He _hated_ miracle plays; imagine you could put on a play about anything at all, and you stroll out of a church and immediately turn round and put on an entertainment detailing exactly what you had listened to an hour or so ago.

He _did,_ however, like Aziraphale clinging to his arm in his excitement, and he wouldn’t have minded if the angel lingered longer.

The moment passed, however, as all moments do, and Aziraphale released him. “You don’t want to watch with me?”

 _“_ With you?” Interest pricked within Crowley. He could ignore the play; the demon could be quite good at disregarding what took place around him. He could sit with the angel; it had been a few years since they had last bumped into one another, and Crowley had grown to miss hearing his quiet voice and bright smile.

 _“_ Yes!” Aziraphale said, and one of those brilliant smiles arrived, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he stared up at Crowley. “I find it rather jolly, watching them interpret how they believe the events went.”

 _“_ I haven’t got anything better to do,” Crowley offered, putting just the right note of grudging acceptance into his voice, and Aziraphale snagged hold of the demon’s hand, leading him into the gathering.

Aziraphale nodded to the man that already occupied the bench, sitting down carefully while Crowley slouched as much as he could while upon the log, cultivating an air of casualness.

The angel nudged Crowley lightly in the ribs, and he tilted his head, glancing over the top of his smoky quartz sunglasses at Aziraphale. “Hm?”

 _“_ What would you say to some blackberry pie after the show? _What?_ ” he asked as Crowley grumbled and squirmed on the log.

 _“_ _More_ food?”

 _“_ It’s only a bit of pie,” Aziraphale pouted.

Crowley turned his attention back to the people preparing their play. “Stop it.”

 _“_ I’m not doing anything.”

 _“_ You’re _looking_ at me.”

 _“_ Heaven forbid,” the angel muttered, and Crowley growled, once more dipping his head back to look at Aziraphale.

 _“_ All right; I’ll buy us some pie.”

 _“_ Oh! Crowley, I wasn’t trying to—”

 _“_ I owe you for the past couple times,” Crowley said easily, and Aziraphale considered the proposition and nodded.

 _“_ Ah! Right. Of course,” the angel assented, even though the demon distinctly recalled that—barring the purchase of the goose-meat at this festival—he had covered breakfast, lunch, and dinner the last three times they’d supped together.

A smile returned to Aziraphale’s face, and Crowley felt him wriggle against him. “What is it now?”

 _“_ You know the legend of blackberries?  Why you oughtn’t eat them after Michaelmas?”

 _“_ You mean how Satan befouled them?  No, I’ve never heard that before,” Crowley replied dryly.

 _“_ Oh. Right. I suppose you would know, wouldn’t you?  Well...” Aziraphale glanced around to make certain no one listened to him but then decided to lean closer, cupping his hand to whisper directly into Crowley’s ear. “I quite like to eat them _after_ rather than before.”

 _“_ _No,_ ” the demon breathed, feigning shock, and Aziraphale giggled. “That is naughty of you, angel.”

 _“_ It _is_ quite naughty of me, isn’t it?” Aziraphale agreed, completely oblivious to Crowley’s sarcasm.

Crowley felt an immense wave of affection flood him for the daft angel. He _was_ daft, wasn’t he? No, it was—it was naivete. It was _endearing_ that he could titter about breaking the rules over something so insignificant.

But that was it, wasn’t it? To the angel, it _wasn’t_ insignificant. Aziraphale didn’t rebel; Aziraphale stuck to the rules, no matter how stupid or pointless they may be, no matter if he disagreed with them personally. That he ate the berries at all, much less delighted in doing so—he truly had begun to change. He did so bit by bit, piece by piece stretched over millennia, but he was not entirely the same angel Crowley spoke to all those years ago in the Garden.

 _“_ Look! It’s about to start!” Aziraphale gripped Crowley’s arm once more, pointing to the actors should the demon miss where he ought to stake his attention.

The men onstage had given themselves wings, and while they were nowhere near as large as Crowley’s, they were big enough that he had to wonder how many geese and ducks they used. One fellow kicked off into a rambling speech about how great God was before the festivities officially started, and called for everyone to join in prayer.

 _“_ D’you think he means me too?” Crowley asked in a stage-whisper, and Aziraphale shushed him.

The demon had not really thought this play business through at all, and the fact soon became readily apparent when the men quit their prayer and leapt into things. It was Michaelmas. What did that celebrate?  Michael.  What was he famous for?  Banishing Satan and the rest of them from Heaven.

Crowley too.

 _“_ I cast thee from Heaven, and thy foul brethren too!” ‘Michael’ shouted, standing tall and proud while the villainous angels writhed about, begging and crying for vengeance, smudged up with soot and the like to appear all the more pathetic in the presence of the archangel’s glory.

The demon stretched his legs out in front of himself, thought better of it, sat up, thought better of that, too, and returned to his slouch, opening and closing his right hand against his hose. Which one of the disgusting creatures was meant to be him? It hadn’t happened like that—he hadn’t wept and grovelled. He hadn’t done _anything_ at all; he hadn’t had the time!  One second he was frolicking around like all the rest, the next he had been flung down without so much as a by-your-leave.

 _“_ Crowley...” The angel offered him a look of pity—not sympathy but _pity—_ and Crowley clenched his hand tightly shut, feeling it tremble against his thigh. “We can go if you like.”

Crowley didn’t need the angel’s pity, and he gave a disinterested sniff. “’S all right. Bit of a drag,” he muttered, and he pressed his sunglasses farther up his nose as Aziraphale watched him with a light frown.

 _“_ I only mention it because Michael is a...a wanker,” Aziraphale said plainly, and Crowley burst into laughter, ignoring someone hushing him from nearby.

 _“_ Are you allowed to say that?”

 _“_ I don’t know anyone who would stop me,” the angel said petulantly, and the actors wrapped up their piece, preparing for a different exhibition. “What does it say about all of... _them_ that I get on better with _you?_ ”

 _“_ You have taste, for a start,” Crowley said, pleased to hear Aziraphale say so. Interacting with him was like prying open a particularly stubborn mollusc; it took effort and time—a _lot_ of time, centuries and centuries worth—but _slowly_ the angel had started to open up and relax his grip.

 _“_ What does it say about _me?_ ” Aziraphale wondered to himself.

Ah. Mollusc slammed shut once more. Better luck next millennia.

When the actors pushed a constructed tree to the centre of the cleared area, Crowley stiffened. He could feel Aziraphale’s eyes on him, however, and he forced himself to relax.  Whatever they portrayed wouldn’t bother _him._   He didn’t care what happened all those years ago, and this was merely a play!

 _“_ I find that I have quite the sweet tooth all of a sudden,” Aziraphale announced, and Crowley jumped a little, not anticipating that he would speak. “Can we go get that pie now?”

 _“_ I know what you’re doing.”

 _“_ I should hope so; I’m not attempting to be too subtle in my declaration that I’d enjoy a slice of pie.”

 _“_ It isn’t about pie and you know it,” Crowley hissed, and the look of concern that quickly overtook the angel’s face bothered him more than the pity had.

 _“_ Crowley. You don’t need to do this,” Aziraphale said softly, and a tenderness the demon hadn’t heard before crept into his tone, giving him pause. The angel searched his face, trying to connect with his eyes, and Crowley was thankful for the sunglasses in that moment.

Crowley returned his attention to the play without even a single word, and Aziraphale sighed quietly next to him.

The man playing the serpent danced around the couple, and Crowley sneered at the get-up. It wasn’t technically correct, really; he didn’t have horns all over his body, and he wasn’t all black, either.

 _“_ Eat it—eat it!” he fairly chanted, and Crowley rolled his eyes, tipping his head back in frustration.

 _“_ Do you like this?” he asked a man across the aisle, and he put his finger to his lips to quiet the demon.

 _“_ You must eat it,” the Serpent said, lowering the branch with an arm. Crowley distinctly remembered not having an arm as he had been a snake at the time, and snakes tend not to have many limbs.

 _“_ Oi! That’s not how it went at all,” Crowley said, hand cupped to his mouth so his voice carried, and the actor faltered in his performance.

 _“_ Be quiet!” a woman from behind him said.

 _“_ No, _you_ shut up,” Crowley countered, turning on the log to find who had shouted that at him.

 _“_ Crowley, I’m beginning to think this was a very bad idea.” Aziraphale fretted, glancing around at the crowd.

 _“_ What? No, no, this is my favourite Biblical story,” Crowley tried for indifference but took a wrong route somewhere, voice emerging strained instead.

He watched the snake circle about them, prodding them on, but—was Crowley ever even needed? Could anyone honestly tell him that—had he not slithered up and pointed out how lovely that apple looked and how it probably tasted even better—people would still be in the Garden of Eden? That Adam and Eve _never_ would have succumbed to that first temptation? Crowley had surrounded himself with people going on five millennia now and he learned a very simple truth in doing so: the surest way to get a human being to do something was to tell them that they were under no circumstances to do _that thing._

 _“_ I never wanted it to happen! Not like this!” Crowley shouted out, hopping up from the log as though it scorched him, and Aziraphale rose only a fraction of a second later.

A chorus of boos reached him as soon as he spoke, and someone launched an apple at him, catching him upon the shoulder.

 _“_ Come on, Crowley. We—”

 _“_ No! I don’t _want_ bloody pie!” Crowley snapped, tearing his arm out of Aziraphale’s grasp.

Those gathered to see the play began to raise their voices, and Crowley had borne witness to enough violent mobs to recognise the stirrings of one in front of him. He did not even want to _be_ there; he had agreed to it in order to please Aziraphale, only he interrupted the play—plays—too many times to allow that to happen.

He chose to leave, then, and his pace was measured, dignified, and certainly not a pell-mell, bat-out-of-hell dash to exit the public square. People clustered here and there, slow and in some instances unmoving, and Crowley squeezed between them impatiently, heart hammering in his chest.

 _“_ Crowley! Wait!”

_Shit._

The demon nudged his leisurely stroll up a notch. Crowley had not anticipated that Aziraphale would follow him—that really _was_ the worst possible way that this could all resolve itself, wasn’t it? The angel comes to provide him with some Holy Pity, and Crowley allows himself to Feel Miserable about something that happened over five thousand years ago.

Crowley did not stop when he reached the threshold of the village, continuing to press on into the abrupt, untamed wilderness that denoted the King’s Land, where the peasants were prohibited from treading. Crowley was not a peasant, however, nor he did not fear the punishment offered, and he stormed a little farther into the woods before his impulsivity melted away, leaving him only with a melancholic ache instead.

He would have preferred the impulsivity, strictly speaking. The demon could see the faces of the townspeople in his mind, seared there as though done by a hot brand. They jeered him without knowing it, revelled in his fall from grace, and Crowley snapped his fingers, drawing up a root from the ground upon which to sit.

Carefully he removed his sunglasses, folding them closed, and clasped them cautiously so as to avoid scratching the lenses. He rested his left elbow against his knee and leaned forward, pressing as great a portion of his face into the palm of his hand as he could manage while letting out a shuddery exhale.

He heard the footsteps approach, but ignored them.

 _“_ Oh! Good. There you are. I—I was worried you might’ve turned into a snake and...and scampered off,” Aziraphale fluttered his hands in the air, chuckling nervously.

 _“_ What do you want?” Crowley snarled at him, and Aziraphale wavered before stepping closer.

The demon looked away.

Crowley regretted snapping at the angel; regretted it even in the moment, even as he spoke. He was angry at Heaven Itself, angry at the angels, and most of all—angry at himself. He wanted to lash out, and Aziraphale was the only angel present. He _also_ happened to be the only angel in existence that Crowley did not wish to personally throttle, which certainly posed a conundrum for him.

He rued taking his anger—his hurt—out on Aziraphale, but he didn’t apologise.

He extended the length of the root instead, creating a spot next to himself for Aziraphale—if he wanted it—and the angel sat down carefully, folding his hands primly in his lap as though he had taken a seat in some parlour room.

 _“_ Thank-you.”

Crowley said nothing, staring ahead and stretching out his long legs.

 _“_ Crowley, I’m—I’m so sorry. I—I didn’t think of it. Of...of the plays. What they may be. Of course you wouldn’t wish to see a—a production about Michael and the Garden of Eden.”

 _“_ It’s all right,” Crowley replied sullenly.

Silence descended between them for a few moments and Crowley sighed, running a hand through his hair. “It’s easy, you know. To not think about it all,” the demon said, and he tipped his head back to look up to the sky. Most of the leaves had fallen, stripping the tree fairly bare, and the sun started to set, its dying lights bleeding out pink and red. “Time passes so quickly. Days...months... _years._ It all blends together.”

 _“_ I know,” Aziraphale said quietly.

 _“_ Aziraphale...”

The angel looked at him, curious. “Yes?”

Crowley didn’t know what to say, and changed tack. “All of that Garden business, I...they told me to cause trouble. You know what Hell’s like. Death, destruction. I didn’t want to do that, I just—I wanted to do something simple. Flouting God is great! Gets you the best marks in the books! And it was just an apple, Aziraphale—it was _just_ an apple. I thought it couldn’t be so bad as all that, but look what I did. Everything that came after, all the killing, all the bloodshed—it all stemmed from that one bite.”

 _“_ It was their _choice,_ my dear,” Aziraphale said softly.

Crowley snorted bitterly. “And who put the idea there?”

 _“_ Do you really think that it was _you_ who brought attention to the apple? I was meant to be watching it, after-all. If you hadn’t slithered along, it...well,” Aziraphale paused, leaning closer toward Crowley in a conspiratorial fashion. “They would have sneaked past eventually. Between you and me, I’m not a very attentive guard, as it were.”

 _“_ I thought the same!” Crowley cried, and Aziraphale frowned heavily. “Not that you’re terrible at what you do but—but the apple bit!  We thought the _same!_ ”

 _“_ That would have horrified me a few centuries ago,” Aziraphale mused, putting his legs out in front of himself to match the demon, and when he set his palms flat along the root, his little finger rested against Crowley’s. “Maybe you’re right; perhaps I am changing.”

 _“_ Does it bother you?”

Aziraphale reflected over the question and tilted his head to look at Crowley as he answered. “It used to—to frighten me when I spoke to you.”

 _“_ I scared you?” Crowley’s heart abruptly sunk, and Aziraphale laughed.

 _“_ Oh, no. That isn’t what I meant. It’s just—what you said was right. You hadn’t done anything, not really, but they kicked you out for it. I thought ‘well, that could be me next, couldn’t it? Best keep my distance’.”

 _“_ I must congratulate you on that,” Crowley drawled sarcastically, and when Aziraphale giggled, he smiled.

 _“_ It is _difficult._ Us talking here, like this—we shouldn’t do it. You and I both know it. We are both aware of what might happen if either of our sides comes to realise that we _have_ done it—and how long we’ve carried on—but we still do it.”

It commenced raining then, the drops fat and cold as they hit the top of Crowley’s head and slid down his neck, disappearing beneath his collar. The precipitation ceased as quickly as it began, and Crowley realised with a start that Aziraphale shielded him with his wing.

 _“_ Angel, are you _mad?_   If someone sees you—”

 _“_ No one is looking; I checked first," Aziraphale said serenely, eyes closed as he smiled. “Even if they did spot me, they’d think I was part of the talent, headed off on a forbidden lark.”

 _“_ Your wings are nicer than theirs,” Crowley mumbled.

 _“_ Thank you, my dear. Why do you think that is?”

 _“_ Probably because they’re real.”

 _“_ What?” Aziraphale blinked, baffled. “ _No!_ Why it is that we find each other, time and again. We could avoid one another, if we made an effort. It is rather a big world, after-all.”

Crowley knew precisely what it was that spurred him onward, that guided his path the moment he thought—or sensed—that Aziraphale would be nearby. Every look he shared with the angel—every smile and every conversation—pushed him closer to an edge, led him teetering to a precipice that dropped into territory he had never mapped. It was—

 _“_ Familiarity,” Crowley replied, but that wasn’t quite true, and tasted wrong upon his tongue when he said it.

 _“_ Familiarity,” Aziraphale tested, and nodded. “I suppose that you’re right.”

 _“_ The rain doesn’t bother you?” Crowley wondered, and Aziraphale hummed.

 _“_ No, but—do you mind scooting a tad closer? It’s a bit...awkward holding this position.”

Crowley slid wordlessly toward Aziraphale, touching shoulders with the angel, and Aziraphale lowered his wing, his soft feathers brushing against the demon’s cheek. Heart thudding quick in his throat, Crowley flexed his fingers, hesitating.

Tentatively he reached out, placing his hand gently over Aziraphale’s.

Aziraphale jumped, pulling his hand away, and Crowley fought against the quick swell of disappointment. “Oh!  I apologise—asking you to move closer but taking up so much space!”

 _“_ I don’t mind,” Crowley said—and he didn’t, of course.  He was glad for the weather that pushed them together, drew them into a snug huddle that was almost intimate, and he listened to the rain strike the trees and sink into the earth, cosy in both the nearness and the warmth of the angel.

 _“_ Familiarity...” Aziraphale repeated to himself, and he furrowed his brow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:
> 
> -I wasn't going to try to talk in 12th century dialect. If you wanted or expected that, I'm sorry to inform you that this is the *wrong* fic for you.  
> -Goose was usually served at Michaelmas, which took place on the 29th of September.  
> -The "Remission of Sin" which bothers Aziraphale so much here is a pure wiping of the slate for people. Catholics (if I've read this right) have a mandatory purgatory no matter if you've been absolved of your sin wherein you purify before getting to Heaven. Like detoxing, kind of. By granting someone this, though, it's like the Pope said "no, you're good" and just waved you straight into Heaven, no matter what terrible sins/crimes you've committed.  
> -Bread plates were a thing; they were called trenchers. They were generally long, flat, three day old pieces of bread. People ate their food on top of them, then put the rock-hard bread and any leftover scraps of food into this collection to be given to beggars to eat. Sounds gross, but wahey! Now we know how diseases like the plague spread oh so quickly.  
> -I mention Crowley as having smoky quartz sunglasses. These apparently surfaced in at least the 12th century in China--if not sooner. They had nothing to do with fixing your vision or blocking the sun but were rather used by judges to hide their expressions as they questioned people in court. I haven't found too many sources on this one, so I don't know the validity of it, but then again I don't speak or read Chinese, so. Anyway! I thought it would be funny to hint at Crowley going to China and bringing back sunglasses as a souvenir.  
> -You weren't supposed to eat blackberries after Michaelmas because Satan allegedly fell into a blackberry bush after Michael cast him from Heaven after The Big Fight. Satan got pretty mad about it, as you do, and cursed, stomped, spit, and pissed in it. Not exactly sure what makes it OK to eat blackberries *before* Michaelmas, but either way--it was also a common thing eaten during that celebration.  
> -Miracle/Saint and Mystery plays were both super popular at this time. Miracle plays were put on in England in 1100 AD, but had been done in France earlier still. Both play types are about Biblical events and miracles performed. Churches soon banned them from being put on inside the church because they were often done humourously; one play actually had the actor of King Herod come out into the audience and mock them during the crucifixion scene. I think technically people weren't supposed to work or do recreation during Michaelmas, but I thought it would be fun to stretch it a bit, so forgive me on that front. I chose the Adam and Eve bit as well as the Michael bit because--well, of course I would, wouldn't I? It only makes sense.
> 
> Sorry this took *so* long. The next part took me *way* longer to write than I anticipated (laziness!), but it *did* clock in at nearly 6,000 words (!!) at last count, so...there's that. Then it took me longer to get *this* up because in the midst of editing it to post earlier, Michael Sheen retweeted me and it blew my concentration for, like, five hours. Phew. I'm too easily excitable/distracted.
> 
> I hope to get the next part up in two to three days, but if I don't, take comfort in that it'll be long. Like these notes. Sorry about *that*, too. Lots of things to reference in this one!
> 
> See you next time and hope you enjoyed it!!


	7. 1316 AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley has a drink in a tavern.

_1316 AD_

Alcoholic cider—there was no point in drinking it otherwise—Crowley did not particularly like. It was too sweet; it made his teeth itch. He preferred something stronger, or at least something that paired well with food, if one was going to make an effort to eat. Not that it was worth it to do _that,_ even. The more food consumed, the harder it was for the alcohol to do its bit.

And Crowley _really_ liked when it Did Its Bit.

Crowley half closed his eyes, reducing them to narrowed slits as he leaned back into the long wooden bench that rested against a roughly hewn stone wall. Someone dreamt up a brilliant idea, carving out a little tavern beneath the ground.

Raucous patrons dotted here and there in the cellar but curiously left Crowley’s bench utterly untouched, getting the strangest sensation that they would be better off across the room, perhaps, instead. Candles sputtered and wavered along the tables, faint pinpricks of light against the otherwise dim backdrop of the tavern, and the demon slouched in his seat, truly comfortable.

For all intents and purposes, Crowley undoubtedly looked as though he had nothing upon his mind, and allowed his thoughts to drift, lulled by the conversation around him, soothed by the warmth that rose from exhalations and closely packed bodies. Nearly sprawled in his seat and taking up the space that two men might, he appeared to be the textbook definition of oblivious, had a book chosen to expound at length on such a subject.

His stare did not falter, however, and he carefully kept his line of sight trained to the opposite wall of the tavern. When Crowley lifted the mug to his mouth, he did not blink—he had not blinked for some time, actually, but his darkened spectacles hid such a fact—and he continued to watch cautiously.

Aziraphale.

It was _always_ Aziraphale, and he wondered how his body sensed the angel before he ever twigged it for himself. He’d get a clamminess in his palms and that weird twinge in the pit of his stomach comprised of equal parts anxiety and—was it giddiness? Could he be giddy?  No.  Young maidens were giddy. He was—well, it wasn’t important _what_ he was.

He allowed his sunglasses to slide down his nose, catching a glint of light off the flash of a blade across the room. He followed the arm and made a note of the face, and watched the man nod to a friend of his, who sidled over and sat sideways on the bench next to Aziraphale, facing the angel.

Crowley could hardly hope to hear what he said, but he did not miss the quick look over Aziraphale’s body, searching for the place the angel kept his coins. A thief, then—only it was his pal with the knife that concerned the demon.

Aziraphale smiled and spoke. His new friend threw his hand out, gesturing to emphasise whatever point he intended to make, and the angel’s brow knit together as he listened, concern alighting upon his features.

The thief moved his right hand to his hip, tapping twice, and kept waving his other hand in the air as he talked. He no doubt identified to his cohort where he ought to focus his pilfering, and Crowley tilted his head, taking another sip of cider before setting the mug down on the table.

As the accomplice approached Aziraphale unnoticed, the demon planted the notion that the floor had suddenly taken a turn and become less-than-level. Really not that difficult at all--stone tended to bubble up here and there when laid down by less than careful hands; add in some liberal libations and, well, the fellow took a tumble, hitting his knees to the floor and allowing his knife to skitter off into some dusty corner, where it might menace a mouse or two instead.

Aziraphale turned, his worry directed now to this new avenue, and Crowley hissed to himself in annoyance that the angel would attempt to aid the man actively trying to steal from him. The demon also noted in the back of his mind that, when looked at broadly, Aziraphale was on the verge of thwarting Crowley’s good deed without even being aware of it, and he saved the idea to perhaps chuckle over at a later time when he wasn’t so agitated.

Crowley quickly realised that he paid Aziraphale too much attention and the chatty thief rather too little as the man shifted his plan from subtle to bold, knife out and in his right hand as he grabbed Aziraphale’s wrist with his left.

A few eyes flickered toward the altercation, but no one stepped in to stop it or even offer an intervening word. A fight breaking out in the midst of a tavern was hardly anything new, and death had been meted out more than a time or two to some unlucky brawlers. Best to just keep to yourself and avoid being drawn into it as well.

Crowley subscribed to that same philosophy—for the most part. What people squabbled over generally did not concern him, and he was content to watch lazily as they scrapped and eventually broke apart to lick their wounds.

For the most part.

Crowley thought of someone attempting to cheat the angel—and it irritated him.

Crowley thought of someone attempting to coerce the angel, yanking on his arm roughly and nearly unseating Aziraphale, fingers locked on his limb in a bruising grasp—and it _infuriated_ him.

He wagered the handle of the tiny dagger probably felt uncomfortably hot in the moment, as though someone had thoughtlessly left it idling over the flames in a hearth. The thief certainly seemed to think so, as he immediately dropped the weapon with a howl, his free hand clinging to his right as he bent inward on himself.

Neither man chose to hang round Aziraphale for much longer—and Crowley thought that a wise decision to make, all things considered. The angel glanced around himself, baffled, and then quickly scanned the people near him.

Shit, he hadn’t thought he’d look so quick. Crowley had better—

Aziraphale looked directly at him, and that look said ‘ _what did you do?_ ’ without needing the use of any words at all.

Crowley smiled and offered him a wave. He was but a simple demon enjoying the ambiance of a tavern; anything that occurred around him was surely an interesting coincidence but nothing more.

The angel stood, cautiously fixed his tunic, and crossed the room to join Crowley, sitting across the table from the demon. “What did you do?” he repeated, this time with words in case the demon hadn’t understood his carefully ordered expression.

 _“_ Oh. Hullo,” Crowley replied.

 _“_ Halloa!” Aziraphale said, complete with automatic smile, and then frowned as if remembering himself. “Back there—what was that?”

 _“_ Not sure,” Crowley picked up his mug, having somehow managed to stretch out its contents the entire time he had been in the tavern. Some might call it a miraculous feat. “What do you mean?”

 _“_ You helped—”

 _“_ No!” Crowley cut him off, and each time he tried to pick up his sentence and start anew, the demon shushed him with varied exclamations until Aziraphale lapsed into what appeared to be a frustrated silence. Crowley could have that effect on others—when he wanted. “I’ve been sat here this whole time; haven’t moved all evening. _I_ didn’t do a thing.”

 _“_ You don’t have to move,” Aziraphale reminded him, and Crowley ignored it. “Well. Regardless. Thank you.”

Crowley made a noise in his throat that could be taken for disinterest or acceptance, but the angel continued.

 _“_ I didn’t _need_ your assistance, however.”

 _“_ You _what?_ ” Crowley broke his slouch, straightening at the angel’s prickly words. “You _did_ see that they both had knives, correct?  Knives they would be more than happy to stick into you. It’s because you keep your purse out; may as well paint a target on yourself and call it a day.”

Aziraphale unhooked the purse from his belt, dropping it onto the table. “It’s empty, of course. What coin I do need I usually just—you know—whip it up myself, as it were. And when I _do_ need to keep some on me, for whatever reason, I put it here.”

Crowley watched Aziraphale lift his leg and wiggle his hose-clad foot for the demon’s benefit, and he sighed, rubbing at his temple. “You don’t suppose a thief might be so cross at lifting an empty purse that he’d stab you in the liver for the hell of it?”

 _“_ I...” Aziraphale frowned again, taking this into consideration for what seemed to be the first time as he lowered his leg. “Well, that wouldn’t be very nice at all.”

Crowley laughed, finding himself pleased to be in Aziraphale’s presence once more. Years fell away—dust in the wind and all that—and he realised recently that he had begun to miss the angel.

1303.  That’s when it was. He had heard chatter that an earthquake rocked Alexandria, nearly destroying the Pharos. He went to see it when it was first constructed; who wouldn’t? It stretched up in the sky, the largest structure ever built by human hands—it stayed as such for centuries. 

He bumped into Aziraphale there, too; apparently they were both drawn like moths to a flame. Crowley remembered having to wait for the angel on the first level, wooed by the various vendors selling an assortment of foods to snack on, and he also recalled Aziraphale’s uttered ‘ _ooh,_ don’t these look good; here, let’s both try them, and then let’s sample that over there—it certainly smells scrummy’ as Aziraphale led him forward.

Crowley preferred the sleek white marble of the tower, however, and the elegant statues that rested at each point of an upper level, crafted as an expression of devotion to various gods from a humble servant. With the wind blowing in from the sea, tugging at his cloth and whipping through his hair, Crowley could close his eyes and picture himself flying.

Aziraphale smiled at him but said nothing, and Crowley suspected he knew what the demon imagined.

Hearing that the earthquake damaged the lighthouse possibly beyond repair left Crowley a little rattled; he liked the idea of various points in history remaining behind as visual markers of the time he and Aziraphale spent there, together. But Pompeii lie buried under a mountain’s—or volcano’s, rather—worth of ash, and every time you turned round, Rome seemed to be falling to this invader or that conqueror.

 _“_ Crowley?”

 _“_ Mmm?” Crowley tipped his head in Aziraphale’s direction to signify the angel held his attention.

 _“_ I asked what it is you’re doing here.”

 _“_ Same as you are, possibly. Passing through?”

 _“_ Possibly,” Aziraphale admitted. “How long has it been? Fifty...fifty-two years?”

Crowley glanced at the angel over the top of his glasses, curious, and Aziraphale ran a finger along a groove in the wood of the tabletop, missing the demon’s look. It had been precisely that long; they had conducted an impromptu rendezvous in Paris which ended in petty bickering.

When had Aziraphale started keeping track of the years?

 _“_ Something like that, I’m sure,” Crowley answered coolly. “Are you here to perform a few miracles? I don’t know that I’d recommend it.”

 _“_ They _are_ quite cross, aren’t they?” Aziraphale agreed, glancing over his shoulder as though the tavern focused its collective eye upon the angel.

So far as Crowley could tell, no one paid them any mind. “Hunger’ll do that.”

 _“_ But it—it’s not _just_ hunger,” Aziraphale said, and stood.

Crowley wondered if this concluded their meeting, and he felt a sharp ache at the idea it might be another half century before he could see the angel again.

Instead, Aziraphale walked round the table, planting himself primly next to Crowley, lowering his voice as he spoke. “It looks to be quite bad, from what I’ve heard.”

 _“_ Oh?” Crowley hadn’t kept up-to-date on the technological machinations of European agriculture. He had been busy doing other things, things that did not involve placing a seed in the ground and then praying that it would eventually grow into a vegetable.

 _“_ Last spring they had a terrible time getting anything at all to grow. It was damp and cold—”

 _“_ It is _still_ damp and cold,” Crowley corrected, and Aziraphale offered him a sympathetic smile.

 _“_ I suppose that’s true—that is precisely my point. One bad year is enough, but two? What will the people do?”

 _“_ That’s up to your lot,” Crowley said, taking a drink of cider as Aziraphale rubbed his hands together anxiously in his lap.

 _“_ From what I’ve heard, they mean it to go on some time.”

Crowley raised an eyebrow and then caught the attention of the innkeeper, gesturing that Aziraphale would need a drink, and he waited until the man had left the beverage with the angel before speaking, “ ‘Some time?’ And how long is that?”

 _“_ Well, I—I don’t know, exactly. They don’t really tell me these, er, things,” Aziraphale waved his hand as though he could dismiss the conversation altogether by doing so. “Could be another year, could be another decade...”

 _“_ That’s nothing to us, angel, but that’s a hell of a lot to _them,_ ” Crowley said, and Aziraphale fidgeted, picking up the mug to turn here and there in his hands rather than drink from it.

 _“_ I understand that.”

 _“_ But it doesn’t bother you?”

Aziraphale scowled more at the table than at Crowley. “Of _course_ it bothers me, but—”

 _“_ It’s all part of the Plan,” Crowley supplied, and added a roll of his eyes as an extra flourish.

 _“_ I wasn’t going to say that,” Aziraphale countered, and he swallowed. “I—I was going to say it’s not...well, it isn’t very _fair._ ”

Crowley leaned back in his seat, surprise no doubt lifting his features, and Aziraphale briefly met his gaze before quickly burying himself in the cider. “Only took you about fifty-three hundred years, but _well done._ ”

Aziraphale lowered his head somewhat, and Crowley wondered if he needled the angel too much. “They’re turning against the church, you know.”

 _“_ Mmm, can you blame them, really?” Crowley stretched and wondered if he could place his arm casually along the back of the bench—around the angel—without inviting comment. He’d have to try it in a moment; he had missed his chance this time. “Prayer’s meant to help, after-all, but it didn’t do a thing.”

 _“_ No, it isn’t. It’s meant to—to connect a soul to God. It isn’t meant to send out a wish-list of things you want to see done for you,” Aziraphale argued, and Crowley wondered if he hadn’t needled the angel enough.

 _“_ That isn’t what _they_ think,” Crowley replied

 _“_ But I don’t...” Aziraphale wriggled a little, sitting back against the bench. “I can’t see what purpose it serves. I understand that—that all of this is beyond me, and I accept it, but...if millions die, and they turn from the church...that helps _your_ lot, not ours. Mine—my lot, I mean.”

Crowley faked a yawn and gave the biggest stretch he had ever done, draping his arm just behind Aziraphale, _just_ against him, and—there! The angel didn’t react at all, preoccupied with his thoughts.

The evening had just taken a turn toward success.

 _“_ Ever since what you said to me at the ark...” Aziraphale began, and Crowley took notice but casually crossed his legs at the ankles, pressing his sunglasses back up his nose with his right hand.

Now and again, Aziraphale would bring up snippets of conversation they had had in the past, hundreds and thousands of years ago. He _remembered_ what Crowley said? Did he do it by chance, or did he carefully label and index it, storing it away for a rainy day? That’s what Crowley did. That’s what Crowley did for _Aziraphale,_ anyway _—_ he didn’t try to recall everything he _himself_ said; that would be a bit mad.

It gave Crowley—hope, he supposed. Hope for what, he asked himself.

He had no answer.

 _“_ With all those children drowning. I can’t help but think about it now. It hasn’t happened here; the famine hasn’t reached here quite yet, but...I’ve heard stories.”

Aziraphale set about squirming like an uncomfortable worm left out to dry in the sun, and Crowley took the opportunity to scoot a little closer, sitting now so that the entire length of his left side came into contact with Aziraphale’s right, save for Crowley’s inconspicuously draped arm.

The angel settled down and looked at Crowley, specifically at his body and how it seemed to have come closer without his knowledge, and Crowley realised that he had perhaps pressed his luck too far. Aziraphale narrowed his eyes, calculating and tallying something to himself, and Crowley drank from his mug, hoping to emanate an air of casualness that would exonerate him from any finger-pointing.

 _“_ What stories?” Crowley prompted gently, and Aziraphale forgot his scrupulously sowed suspicion.

 _“_ Oh, Crowley! Families can’t afford to feed themselves, and the parents have let loose their children into the woods, thinking it better on both sides. Do you think a—a toddler can survive in the wilderness on their own? And—and there are darker stories still, that people have come to collect those abandoned children, finding an easy meal that no one would ever know about.”

Crowley rubbed at his neck, uncertain of what to say. He understood the reasoning behind it, and desperation forced people to act in even worse ways. He _really_ didn’t like to picture it, though; a woman, perhaps, wandering into the woods, offering a hand to a scared child, promising to care for them, soothing their fears and then—

 _“_ I’m sorry,” Aziraphale said suddenly, and Crowley blinked at the interruption to his thoughts.

 _“_ About what, angel?” he asked, and Aziraphale looked him full on in the face—might have connected with his eyes if Crowley had let him.

 _“_ The—the thing about the children. I know you’re a bit soft on them.”

 _“_ I am not,” Crowley grumbled, showing his teeth with a curled lip of distaste. “I find them annoying. Loud. Sticky— _how_ are they _always_ so sticky? I only mentioned them to win an upper hand in an argument, that’s all.”

They sat in companionable quiet for a moment, and then Aziraphale spoke again.

 _“_ Why do you always help me?”

 _“_ I don’t,” Crowley said breezily, pointing his gaze directly forward in order to take in the beauty, the majesty, the sheer _grandeur_ of a poorly lit tavern filled with stinking men.

 _“_ Well, not _always,_ I suppose, but you have before...in the past. And you did just a bit ago.”

 _“_ Why did _you_ help _me,_ back in that monastery?” Crowley asked, deciding to turn the tables on the angel. Table turning was always a nice tool to have in one’s arsenal in a conversation. Who decided that was a thing, though? Turning a table? Turning it from length side to width? Or did they mean _over_ turning it, so all the food wound up on the floor? That’s certainly a mess. Was he getting to be a touch tipsy? He could stand up to find out, but then he’d have to peel himself away from Aziraphale, and there was no way he’d be able to slide up to him a second time without being noticed.

 _“_ It’s in my nature to do good.”

Crowley gave his eyes another spin. “Right.”

Aziraphale’s cheeks were getting red, and Crowley knew he tripped along the edge of irritation, heading straight for annoyed judging by the downturn of his mouth, “Because it was the right thing to do.”

 _“_ Aha!” Crowley said. Shouted, more like, as a few heads turned his way. Yes, it seemed he was quite tipsy, actually, and the word itself felt fuzzy and thick on his tongue. Thick was an odd word, though. It had at least three definitions that he could think up, and probably more besides. How many other words had multiple meanings? All of them, it seemed like. Crowley wondered dimly how many words had only one specific definition.

 _“_ Aha!” Crowley repeated for good measure, temporarily having misplaced what he wished to say before finding it tucked away, just there behind thick. “But _was_ it the right thing to do? I’m a demon. I _think_ the rules are to let me be. Let the cards fall as they may. The chips fall. Let the chips fall as they may. It’s good to help other people.  Not me.  Is it chips or is it cards that fall?”

 _“_ I do believe it’s both,” Aziraphale remarked placidly, and that sounded right to Crowley, or perhaps he just liked to hear the angel speak no matter what he said. “I think doing good _is_ good, no matter what it is for. If a man is drowning, and a woman helps him to live, did she do a bad thing if the man she saved had, say, killed someone?”

Crowley thought about it. “Possibly not, but if Heaven or Gabriel or _Michael_ told you the woman had done a bad turn, what then?”

Aziraphale chewed at his lip, and he had a gulp of his cider before answering. “Then…I suppose she would have done.”

 _“_ She would have done! You change your entire opinion based on what someone else tells you!”

 _“_ It isn’t _just_ ‘someone else’, Crowley. We’re— _I’m_ meant to listen to them.”

Crowley sniffed, tipping his head back against the bench and closing his eyes. “That’s where we’re different, angel. I just couldn’t. _Can’t._ ”

 _“_ Just because I listen doesn’t mean that I have to like it,” Aziraphale muttered darkly, and Crowley cracked open an eye.

That was the second time the angel surprised him that evening, and he opened his other eye, resting his cheek flat against his arm as he looked at Aziraphale.  Aziraphale pretended to ignore Crowley, but the demon didn’t miss his quick, fluttering look toward him, a look which happened twice in quick succession.

 _“_ I know what you think about me.”

 _“_ Oh? And what do I think about you, angel?” Crowley couldn’t stop the purr from creeping into his voice, but Aziraphale missed it utterly.

 _“_ That I—I’m some stickler for the rules. That I am—am uptight. That I am...” Aziraphale hesitated, giving his shoulders a bit of a wriggle. “That I am no fun.”

Crowley smiled. “Since when do you worry about being fun?” he wondered, and Aziraphale pinked.

 _“_ Well, I’m not. Necessarily. Interested in being ‘fun’, I mean,” Aziraphale quoted the word. “I just said it as it’s what _you_ value.”

 _“_ All right, fair enough,” Crowley spoke more into his fabric than to the angel, but he peeped over his sunglasses at him. “Since when do you care what I ‘value’, then?” he asked, and he raised his right hand to sloppily mimic Aziraphale’s quoting.

The pink in Aziraphale’s face shifted quickly to red, and extended in a mottled fashion down his neck. “I—look. The point _is_ that I have a mind of my own.”

 _“_ That’s good,” Crowley offered encouragingly, and was rewarded with a tiny, shy smile. “I’m glad you’ve said that, actually.”

 _“_ Why is that?” Aziraphale instantly put his guard back into place, turning slightly upon the bench in order to properly face Crowley.

Crowley let his fingers drape over the edge of the backing, allowing them to brush and rest against Aziraphale’s shoulder, and Aziraphale glanced at his hand for a moment before permitting it to stay. “I have a proposition for you. For us.”

Crowley felt Aziraphale tense beneath him, but he didn’t say no. “Go on, then,” he ordered, and the demon had to pause to marvel how far his angel had come. Obviously the steps seemed small, and certainly they were--at least in Crowley’s very fine opinion--but each faltering footfall took Aziraphale further from a point set rigidly in stone, a point where Crowley could never hope to reach him.

 _“_ Why don’t we work together?”

Aziraphale paused, as though he considered the possibility that Crowley had gone quite mad rather quickly. “Work...together,” he said slowly, weighting out each word. “And what do you mean by that, exactly?”

The demon blinked, trying to collect his thoughts. Right. He hadn’t actually planned it out this far. Or, rather, he had, but he had always practised his spiel alone and sober, which was completely different than with Aziraphale resting against him— _still_ resting against him—while he dove quickly toward being outright inebriated. He could do something about a portion of that, ie, will himself sober again, but that required Effort.  Aziraphale would certainly notice; Crowley could hardly pretend he didn’t particularly care what the angel did if he forced himself to focus.

 _“_ We could...work together.”

 _“_ No,” Aziraphale said immediately, shaking his head. “I’ve already told you no before, Crowley.”

 _“_ Ah!” Crowley waggled his finger at Aziraphale, apparently full of exclamations that evening. “No. I proposed then—you meant when we were larking around as knights, right?”

 _“_ I did,” the angel replied stiffly.

 _“_ I proposed _then_ that we ought _travel_ together. What I say _now_ is that we _work_ together.”

 _“_ And what is the difference?” Aziraphale asked suspiciously.

Crowley fumbled slightly; he had anticipated the angel would shut him down strenuously, and most likely vacate the table in the process. It was how the demon always imagined their discussion concluding. He stayed, however, although he took up fidgeting again so that Crowley’s fingers now brushed at his jaw rather than his shoulder.

 _“_ Well. I’m saving us time.”

 _“_ Something we don’t have a great deal of,” Aziraphale muttered dryly into his mug, and Crowley smiled.

 _“_ Say you’re meant to be in Venice, and _I’m_ meant to be in Venice—one of us could go and do the work for both of us.”

 _“_ That is...it is wrong,” Aziraphale said firmly.

 _“_ _Is_ it? I consider it to be mischief, most of the time. On my end, obviously, not yours. I put it in fancy words, really sell the point to my lot that mildly inconveniencing people is far worse than the way it looks at the end of the day, and that’s that, really. I wouldn’t stick you with anything that would dirty your hands, angel.”

Aziraphale sniffed. “The very act of—of temptation, or anything therein—sullies my hands, Crowley. I don’t know that I can do this after-all.”

He made to rise from the bench, but Crowley gripped his shoulder, stopping him. “Think of it like this, Aziraphale. If I can do...” he paused in order to quote, “ ‘good’ things, as you particularly enjoy telling me, yet _they_ haven’t noticed, why can’t you do ‘bad’ things with the same results? Provided you don’t go shouting it about and wringing your hands over it, they’ll be none the wiser. Your lot, not mine. But not my lot, either.”

Aziraphale said nothing.

 _“_ What does it matter _who_ does it, so long as it gets done?”

 _“_ We are treading on very thin ice, Crowley,” Aziraphale said finally, and he spoke so quietly—hardly moved his lips at all—that the demon had to strain to catch his words.

 _“_ I’ve been doing that for centuries now,” Crowley said with a grin, but he felt cold admitting it. There was danger in putting voice to your thoughts; he had learned that lesson rather painfully a few millennia ago.

 _“_ But if they find out—”

Crowley cut him off. “My side would be quicker to notice than yours, I’m certain.”

Aziraphale gave him a special Look, one that he had only done a couple times in all the years that Crowley had known him. He stared straight into his eyes, as though he could see directly through the demon, as though he could keep him pinned to that spot just with his gaze; Crowley thought briefly that maybe he _could._ “Well, I—that is what I’m worried about.”

 _“_ You...what?” Crowley blinked, wondering if his brain ran sluggishly from the alcohol or if the angel had thrown him for a loop, and Aziraphale smiled tentatively, voice still low, furtive.

 _“_ Oh, don’t look so shocked. Wouldn’t you say that we have become something like...” Aziraphale paused and quickly glanced about himself to ensure no one lurked, ready to eavesdrop into their conversation. “Like friends? It’s difficult not to be, always—always bumping into one another as we do. And after we met over that princess?  We didn’t part company for months, though I never intended to stay with you any longer than it took to get to the nearest village.  What _would_ you call that?”

 _“_ Friends?”  Crowley blurted it out derisively, even as an inward voice chanted it louder and louder in his mind, a ravaging echo that momentarily blotted out his plans to secure an Understanding between the two of them.   _Friends!_   “An angel and a demon? Are you _certain_ there isn’t some clause that says we both have to explode if that happens?”

 _“_ I don’t suppose there is—I’m still here, after-all!” Aziraphale said, and he giggled.

As Crowley listened to him titter—and by the sounds of it, the angel was strolling merrily on his way toward Tipsy-dom—he realised he had taken another step toward plunging over a cliff from which he could never return. He _realised_ that he would do nearly anything to make Aziraphale smile, or laugh—to separate him from his proper facade.

 _“_ So you’ll do it then?”

Aziraphale returned abruptly to seriousness. “No. Don’t—don’t give me that look,” he said, and Crowley wondered what look he offered to the angel. “I’m meant to do good. I’m meant to _be_ good. That’s all that matters to them. I’m certainly not meant to be traipsing around, following Hell’s checklist.”

 _“_ Can’t good people do bad things? Can’t bad people do good things?”

 _“_ Yes, _people,_ ” Aziraphale stressed. “ _I_ am an _angel_ . The rules are a _little_ different for me—and for you!”

 _“_ Think about it!” he said, throwing his right hand out, and Aziraphale watched the movement of his arm before meeting Crowley’s eyes again. “Remember that princess? If we just laid out the facts as they were, keep her as a princess--which makes her _miserable--_ or set her free to do as she likes, which deed would you think belonged to which side?”

Aziraphale glanced away.

 _“_ Angel, they don’t pay us any mind at all, so long as what needs done, _gets_ done.”

 _“_ Right. And how would it ‘get done’, precisely? How would we decide who—who does both the blessing and the tempting?”

A shiny silver coin emblazoned with a not-very-accurate rendition of Edward II appeared between Crowley’s thumb and finger, and he waggled it enticingly at the angel. “How’s this? The winner decided completely at random, and it’s entirely _our own choice_ to do it at all. And...you won’t have to do anything more than minor irritations on my side—promise.”

Aziraphale stared at him. Stared at him long enough that Crowley knew his answer before he said it. A no—

A timid smile started to form on Aziraphale’s lips instead. “I _do_ rather like coin tosses.”

 _“_ Who doesn’t!” Crowley declared, but he imagined he would have stated the same thing to anything that Aziraphale had said in that moment. “Be my guest.”

Collecting the coin from Crowley, Aziraphale hesitated. “Are you _absolutely_ sure about this, Crowley? There would be a frightful row from Heaven if they caught me at this, but _you_ ...Hell would _destroy_ you.”

 _“_ That’s why we won’t tell Hell, angel, nor Heaven either, for that matter—I’ve found both sides to be not-much-fun.” Crowley kicked out his legs again and sank back as much as he could into the hard wooden bench. “Right!  I’ll take tails. We can hammer out where we need to go and what needs to be done later. For now...let’s see who gets to have all the excitement."

 _“_ Oh!” Aziraphale cried after he flipped the coin and peered down at it, holding out his hand so Crowley could see the result if he wished. Crowley did not wish, as he knew from the angel’s pleased inflection how it had gone. “Looks to be you.”

 _“_ _Wahoo!_ ” Crowley drawled sarcastically, not turning on the bench as he stretched his right arm awkwardly across his chest. “Shake on it?”

Aziraphale glanced at his own hand and cautiously accepted, returning to a nervous giggle. “I feel rather naughty—agreeing to this, I mean.”

 _“_ O, you’re _tremendously_ naughty; if you don’t watch it, they’ll put up posters warning about you,” Crowley murmured, shutting his eyes and tipping his head to rest against the bench before jolting upright as though he had been pricked in a sensitive area with a very sharp needle. “Oh! Oh yes! I’d nearly forgotten!”

 _“_ What is it?” Aziraphale wondered, a mild touch of panic creeping into his voice, and Crowley waved his left hand dismissively to allay the angel’s paranoia while feeling at his belt with his right, unhooking a little silken bag.

 _“_ I got these for you, angel. Some morsels to try.”

 _“_ _Oooh,_ ” Aziraphale touched fingertips to his lips, eyes dancing at what might possibly lie inside it, and the sight of such great happiness so easily won plucked at Crowley’s heart. “Oh, but...I couldn’t possibly.”

 _“_ Yes, you could,” Crowley said, sliding the bag along the table a fraction closer to Aziraphale.

 _“_ There are people starving.”

 _“_ Giving them what’s in this bag won’t change that,” Crowley argued.

 _“_ Yes, but—”

 _“_ And if you give to one, they’ll all want some. Then you’ve started a fight. Do you want that on your conscience?”

Aziraphale stared warily at the bag, his gaze flitting up to Crowley’s. “No. No, I suppose I wouldn’t. They’re almonds!” he said delightedly as he opened his gift, informing the demon as though Crowley wasn’t perfectly aware what was hidden within.

 _“_ You don’t say,” Crowley said with feigned surprise. “They are a little old, but they ought to taste all right.”

 _“_ They are delicious—the trouble you must have gone to, to fetch them.”

 _“_ Eh. I found them on the way,” Crowley mumbled, and he _had_ found them on the way, if on the way constituted searching three separate towns before finding a person who would make the sugar almonds for him.

 _“_ Thank you,” Aziraphale said sincerely.

Crowley made a noise like a grumble in response, and he was surprised when Aziraphale faced him on the bench, offering the bag back to him. “You—you _don’t_ like them?”

 _“_ No, no! I _do,_ only—I thought we ought to share. Have some with me.”

The demon repressed his natural response to reject it with a quip; he knew more than anything else that he would hurt Aziraphale’s feelings if he brusquely refused. So he offered a common sense plea instead. “There aren’t all that many, angel. Are you sure you don’t want them for yourself?”

 _“_ Well...no,” Aziraphale said quietly. “I would rather share them with you.”

Crowley delicately took an almond, and he matched Aziraphale’s small, gentle smile with one of his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I don't know why I'm going so slow lately, haha. Anyway! Notes:
> 
> -The tavern this is set in is based on a tavern I found pictures of in the Czech Republic, which originated in about the same time as this chapter portion.  
> -The Great Famine lasted from 1315 to 1317 and extended all the way from Russia down into Italy. A wet, cold spring in 1315 prevented the farmers from planting their crops, and what they *did* plant ended up rotting in the ground before they could harvest it. King Edward II stopped in St. Albans in the summer of 1315, and he had trouble getting bread to eat. You know it's a clear sign of how bad things *really* are when the King has trouble getting food to eat, especially something as basic as bread for him and his entourage. The same weather continued through all of 1316, but returned to normal in 1317. The damage was done, however; people had eaten the seeds of what they would have planted out of desperation, and they had eaten the animals they used to plough the fields. It took until 1325 for things to level out, but by then 10 to 15% of the population had died from starvation or illness as a direct result from their malnutrition.  
> -Also just want to throw it out there that Edward II is my 24th great-grandfather. My family has had a certain last name for almost 700 years, stopping at my great-grandmother. He WAS the King then, so it's totally fair having him cameo on the coin, HAHA!  
> -It's believed that people *did* turn cannibal; I mean, it makes sense, after-all. Nothing to eat, you've eaten your animals and seeds...what else is left? There was also written notes of people leaving their children in forests due to their inability to feed them. Hansel and Gretel is thought to have its roots from the Great Famine. Children in woods, a person looking to eat them...  
> -The Great Famine, no doubt combined with the horrors of the Bubonic Plague from 1347 to 1351, started to turn people against the Catholic Church, which was The Religion of that time. The regular populace viewed themselves as being punished by God for the evils in the Pope and those who were higher up in the organisation, and they didn't like it.  
> -Sugared almonds were definitely a thing by this point in time (or at least that's what my Very Serious Food Research seemed to point toward). They can also apparently last three to four months without going...stale? Bad? I'm not an Expert in the Field of Almond-ry.  
> -Finally, you may notice that I often tag "gentle" with Aziraphale's looks or eyes or what have you. You probably go "Gosh, what a bad writer". Well, there's that, I'm sure, but ALSO I just wanted to paint him in that light. I could use other words. But I haven't. So there you...have it.
> 
> I have the next one only half-finished, but I was tired of promising myself I'd finish it and then not doing it, so have this one. I'm gonna work harder to have the next ones out sooner. If there are errors in this, I'm sure I'll catch them later. Hope you enjoy it!
> 
> I'll see you soon!!
> 
> (PS: Now I'm just trying to be as absurdly vague and unhelpful as possible with my summaries. That's just my brand of humour, I'm afraid).


	8. 1431 AD & 1432 AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley attends a public event.

_1431 AD (May)_

_“_ Here. Take this.”

Crowley handed the woman—the girl, really, if he was being honest—the thick bread, passing over a cloth bundle containing cheese to go with it.

She fell upon the food ravenously, crouching down to gnaw at the bread while the demon leaned into the corner formed where stone met the bars of the heavy iron door which kept her trapped in the small room.

 _“_ All I have is this...this horrid broth. Thin—it might as well be water,” she said when she surfaced for air a moment later, anxious eyes darting here and there, dirty fingers sinking into the fresh bread. “Often there are bugs in it, which is nothing like the vermin that lurk, waiting to come out at night.”

 _“_ Oh, I imagine,” he replied casually, pressing his darkened glasses further up his nose, watching as she wept silent tears when she bit carefully into the hunk of cheese.

 _“_ I never thought that I would taste this again,” she sniffed, looking up at him with wide eyes, and hell—heaven— _whatever,_ she looked like just a frightened kid. “Isn’t it funny? They are _supposed_ to give me this sort of food, and yet...thank you, monsieur.”

Crowley gave a grunt she could choose to interpret as she wished, and he nodded his chin at her clothing. “Where’d you get those, then?”

A green doublet no doubt atop a linen shirt, braies and hose that were white but quickly accumulating the grubby colour offered up by the prison, leather boots—someone had paid a pretty coin indeed to replace her tattered and torn dress.

The woman’s expression softened at the question, and she paused her eating to reflect on it. “A fellow who was here to visit me the other day brought them for me; he never gave his name. He had such a gentle way about him, though, and he seemed to know exactly what I worried about,” she murmured, plucking absentmindedly at the jacket, smoothing her left hand against the trousers. “Said the men wouldn’t bother with a struggle—and he was right, praise God.”

Crowley curled his lip at her sentiment, folding his arms to his chest, but kept his silence as he watched her devour the meagre meal. “Try this,” he said when she had nearly finished, and she easily caught the apricot he had plucked from his pocket and tossed to her.

She wrinkled her nose. “This will cause a fever.”

 _“_ As if you have to worry about that,” Crowley snorted without mirth, and she bit into the apricot without further argument, shutting her eyes as she tasted the juice on her tongue.

Her bliss at the simple fruit reminded Crowley of Aziraphale, and he suddenly—intensely—missed the angel. With each encounter, their orbits seemed to shorten in length, and it had been a few years since he had last met with Aziraphale; he was due any time for another rendezvous.

Crowley hoped this time he could win the blasted coin toss; _ten times_ and he had lost _each one!_ He had begun to suspect the angel of cheating and flipped it himself, then accused him of Miracling it to come out in his favour, and even once, on a particularly memorable occasion, enlisted someone else to flip it for them as they squabbled the entire time.

Bloody defective coins.

 _“_ Sorry it didn’t work out.”

She smiled ruefully. “Ah, monsieur, but I tasted freedom! And dropping from this height into the soft dirt of the moat was exhilarating. I felt for a moment as though I had sprouted wings.”

Crowley understood what that feeling was like, and thought he understood what it meant to have freedom for a moment before it was yanked away. Still, it didn’t _do_ to gad about in her cell for long, and the demon had his hand upon the door when she spoke.

 _“_ By the way, monsieur—how are you allowed to visit me when you wish? You must be a very important person.”

 _“_ I must be,” Crowley smirked.

 _“_ Thank you,” she said softly, hand wringing around the cloth. “You have treated me kindly, like the angels that come to me in my dreams.”

 _“_ Only I’m actually here, right?” Crowley couldn’t help but snipe, couldn’t help the hard edge that waltzed into his voice, and when she looked up at him, he waved dismissively. “I’ve gotta be off. I’m an important person, after-all.”

 _“_ God be with you,” she said solemnly, and Crowley held up both his hands.

 _“_ Yeah, that’s—good-bye,” he winced, opening and shutting the door without anyone noticing him. He was quite good at that--getting around people who paid him no mind--and _should_ they recall something out of the ordinary, they would have a devil of a time putting their finger on what, precisely, had bothered them in the corridor of the prison.

* * *

 

So that was it, then.

Jehanne would die.

Crowley glanced up at the sky, a bright blue with hardly any clouds in sight, and he thought it a shame to be put to death on such a lovely day. Well. Relatively speaking, he imagined execution on any day at all wasn’t quite pleasant, but it seemed a shame to have to march to your demise when the birds sang and spring stepped toward summer.

He anticipated a crowd, and more people gathered than he believed would, some wearing grim expressions but others chatting, nudging each other, and laughing as though they stopped to watch some grand play. Children dotted amongst the group—not many, mind you, but brought along in order to instil some sort of moral Crowley could not grasp.

 _“_ Unfortunate circumstances under which we are to meet, hm?”

Crowley’s heart leapt at the voice, and he turned to his right to find Aziraphale standing next to him, arms crossed to his chest as he stared ahead at the pyre. “You ought to have said ‘boo’.”

Aziraphale’s smile was fleeting, and he glanced at Crowley from the corner of his eye. “It’s all rather ghoulish, isn’t it?”

 _“_ Mmm, but I don’t suppose they will ever stop killing one another.”

 _“_ Oh, I didn’t mean that. Not that—not that it _isn’t_ perfectly ghastly, but...” Aziraphale gave a quick look around himself and then nodded his head to the right. “All these people, just waiting to see the poor woman die.”

 _“_ We’re doing that too,” Crowley thought it only fair to point out, and Aziraphale frowned.

 _“_ I imagine our reasoning for doing so is quite different than theirs.”

 _“_ So your lot came to her, did you? In dreams?  Told her she ought to go off and plunge everyone into war? Say what you will about Hell, but Heaven _really_ likes to watch everyone murder each other.”

 _“_ It isn’t like that,” Aziraphale said, and when Crowley stared pointedly at him, he amended his statement. “Not... _exactly_. Something had to be done about all the—the unpleasantness. With the French and the English, you know. Never quite have gotten along with each other, have they?”

 _“_ So the solution is to—to what? Get both sides quite cross with each other and let them have at it?”

 _“_ Possibly it will help them to settle their differences once and for all. That _would_ be rather nice, wouldn’t it?”

 _“_ Angel—do you _hear_ yourself!” Crowley cried, and Aziraphale inhaled, held the breath far longer than he ought, and exhaled it with a sigh. “That’s madness. It’s _stupidity._ Treaties and truces never last; there’s always something new, something irritating, and then they’re fighting again. What is it Heaven _really_ wants from all this?”

Aziraphale stared ahead, and Crowley followed his gaze, watching as they led Jehanne to the prepared pyre. She looked directly toward them, surprise registering on her face, and then was positioned against the wood, held in place as they bound her to the stake.

 _“_ What they want,” Aziraphale said in a low voice, the voice Crowley had learned to recognise as the one the angel employed when he was telling Crowley something he thought he ought not, “is for the woman to be a martyr. Something to unify all those dissidents. Something to rally behind.”

 _“_ She isn’t a something, though; she’s a _person,_ ” Crowley argued, catching Aziraphale by the arm, and the angel glanced down at his hand.

 _“_ I know that.”

“ _Do_ you? Would you be stood out here if you did?”

 _“_ Would I!” Aziraphale’s eyebrows raised nearly to his hairline, and he pulled his arm free of the demon’s grasp. “Would _I!_ What about _you?_ You stand here lecturing—lecturing _me,_ but you’re watching just the same as I am, some...sympathetic onlooker to a terrible event.”

 _“_ Look!” Crowley hissed, pressing into Aziraphale’s personal space, and the angel didn’t flinch but rather flicked his gaze elsewhere, unwilling to maintain eye contact any longer. “I’m a thorn in the side of Heaven—and all of you lot that flutter up there—but I’m a _thorn._ That’s it! Nothing more! I _knew_ your side had something Big planned for her. I’m not fool enough to bring all of Heaven’s fury down on my head. I haven’t got anyone who’d stick by my side—I’m _on my own!_ ”

Aziraphale’s eyes returned to Crowley’s for a moment. “You were behind the escape attempts.”

Crowley stepped away from Aziraphale, kicking a boot in frustration against the ground. “None of ‘em worked. Thought I’d been clever with it, done my best effort, but—hang on a moment. How’d you know about those?”

“Word gets around,” Aziraphale said quickly, vaguely, and Crowley narrowed his eyes.

 _“_ You’re lying!”

 _“_ No, I’m not!” Aziraphale said even more quickly, adding in a fidgeting step to really drive home the notion that he told nothing but the truth.

 _“_ You _are!_ ” Crowley blinked, uncertain of what to say to the angel. “How could you thwart me?”

 _“_ It’s what we do. We—we thwart each other,” Aziraphale murmured uncertainly, gesturing between them.

 _“_ Yes, for small things. Letting cattle go, blessing some fellow in a village—not sending a woman to her death!”

Aziraphale’s eyes widened. “But I haven’t done!”

 _“_ You—!” Crowley gestured wildly back to the pyre, where they currently built up kindling to make certain she burnt. “What do you think they’re planning to do over there? Have a _picnic?!_ ”

 _“_ _I_ didn’t do that,” Aziraphale argued. “When I said we thwart, I—I meant in response to your question. But I never stopped your little gambit. That was someone else, I’m afraid.”

 _“_ One of your own still,” Crowley sniffed, somewhat mollified, and Aziraphale shrugged helplessly. “Who was it? No—better yet—who was it that came to her in the first place?”

Aziraphale looked at him, and Crowley groaned, tipping his head back.

 _“_ Don’t say it. Michael?” Crowley cracked open one eye and Aziraphale smiled sympathetically. “Of _course_ it bloody was; don’t even know why I asked. Angel, I—can’t you admit it? Can’t you see how wrong this all is?”

 _“_ I don’t like it.”

 _“_ That isn’t what I asked. How can you stand by and let it happen?”

Aziraphale clenched his hand at his side and then thought better of it, flexing his fingers. “You act as though I’m the one lighting the poor girl.”

 _“_ You might as well,” Crowley snapped.

 _“_ This isn’t _my_ choice. You may not have noticed, but—but Heaven doesn’t take what I feel into consideration.”

 _“_ You could have stopped your friend. Could’ve...could’ve tried your thwarting out on him,” Crowley prodded. “You’re getting better at it.”

 _“_ _Me?_ Crowley, I—” Aziraphale swallowed, looked around, and drew nearer to the demon, whispering. “I can’t do a _thing._ It’s bad enough that we—could you imagine if I actively stopped their hand? With _this?_    They’ve been working toward it for years now; they’d be _furious_ with me, and I can’t say that I’ve given them much to be pleased about, as it stands.”

 _“_ There’s supposed to be a difference between us, angel. You’re the ‘good’ guys—allegedly. When are you going to start acting it?”

The blood seemed to first drain from Aziraphale’s face, then flood rapidly into it again at Crowley’s words. “If you don’t approve of the way in which I conduct myself, I don’t have to keep—keep _faffing_ around for you— _with_ you. It’s irksome at best...and dangerous at worst. For _both_ of us.”

 _“_ Then don’t! I can do fine on my own; I’d _been_ doing fine on my own for five thousand years until I got it in my head to ask you for help!” Crowley hissed and threw his arms out, distinctly aware that others had begun to watch their fight. Was it a fight? No, couldn’t be; they always did this.

This felt—different, somehow. Sharper. Like a door without a handle slamming shut in front of his face.

 _“_ All right,” Aziraphale said, tone leaning closer to frigid than cool.

 _“_ Good.” Crowley matched him in the temperature range.

 _“_ I believe that we’re done here,” Aziraphale brushed lightly at his immaculate shirt-front.

 _“_ If you like,” Crowley said breezily. He didn’t care if the angel left. He could find another one; there were absolute bunches of them, all as priggish and uptight as Aziraphale.

It wouldn’t be the same, though, but Crowley couldn’t keep from speaking, couldn’t keep from making things worse. Crowley didn’t want to say it—hated saying it. Again, just as with the play over three centuries ago, he wanted to rage at Heaven and found Aziraphale to be the only available substitute. Fifty-four hundred years of anger and anguish slipped out of him and, once out, it couldn’t be pulled back in again.

 _“_ Sure you don’t want to stick around, too? I know you enjoy it, watching all the little pieces get sacrificed for ‘the Greater Good’, the ‘Ineffable Plan’.”

A fleeting look of hurt crossed Aziraphale’s face; Crowley might have missed it had he blinked. But he didn’t blink often as it was, and hated to miss a moment in which he could otherwise be etching every one of the angel’s expressions into his memory. He caught the twitch of Aziraphale’s left cheek, and the tremble of his bottom lip before resignation settled into his soft green eyes.

Aziraphale turned on his heel but stopped at Crowley’s side, tilting his head toward him. “Did you ever stop to ask yourself who it was that gave Jehanne the clothing, Crowley?” He spoke his words quietly, directing them toward the demon’s throat rather than meeting his eyes, and he hesitated for a moment, as though waiting for Crowley to say something in response.

Crowley had nothing to say, pulled in too many directions at once to pick the right thread to follow, and Aziraphale nodded and left him behind, muttering a trail of _Pardon!s_ and _Oh!_ _Excuse me! I really do apologise_ s as he weaved his way through the crowd.

The pyre went up in flames then; it didn’t take long for the fire to spread from twig to twig, climbing higher and higher, licking up toward Jehanne. She stood, a small figure in front of hundreds of eyes, but she pointed her chin up in the air, blinking back tears as she breathed shallowly, mouth clamped shut until she could endure it no longer.

Crowley shut his eyes tightly as he listened to the crack and snap of the hungry flames, the jeers of the unfeeling portion of the crowd, and, most of all—the shriek that slipped out of her as the bonfire caught hold of her flesh.

He stayed until the screaming ceased, and he remained longer still, watching without expression as the officials raked through the still-bright coals, burning her body twice more to keep anyone from plucking out bits of relics.

Looking up toward the sky, Crowley wondered about the sort of Plan that would hand down a torturous death to a woman little more than a child, and he pushed his darkened spectacles farther up his nose as he turned from the pitiful pile of ashes he had known only hours earlier.

* * *

_1432 AD (January)_

The old king died, and a new king was selected. Well, _selected._ They popped his son on the throne next, and Crowley always considered it stupid to believe that birth decided which one person ought to rule _everyone_ else. He also believed it to be even more foolish that the one placed in charge would be a child.

He said as much—in taverns, public spaces, and just about anywhere others had happened to gather—and he could feel the civilians agree with him, an anger sparking and igniting within them that hadn’t been there earlier.

Crowley couldn’t say that he was terribly surprised when some serious looking men showed up at the inn he frequented, requesting in not-so-nice words that he accompany them. And he obliged, strolling along with them as though they had asked him out for tea and a walk, attempting light-hearted conversation with any who would have it. He got the youngest fellow to chat a bit about his family until the others quashed _that_ , and then he was left to trudge along in as much silence as could be afforded in the midst of all the clanking armour.

They charged him with treason, which certainly sounded right. Crowley possessed an innate charm; they had sent him up to cause mischief, after-all, and a clever tongue combined with an easy manner could weaken knees and move metaphorical mountains. It didn’t work in the least on angels—not in Crowley’s personal experience spanning several thousands of years, anyway—and he assumed they must have some sort of internal defence system to guard against his wiles.

The demon did not find himself possessing a very charming _mood_ at that moment, however, and when the council questioned him, bluntly asking if he had done it, he recalled his answer to have been ‘And if I have?’ with a tilt of his head and a smile that bore a little too much edge to be friendly. They hadn’t quite liked that answer, really, and they had him escorted away after a brief period of consternation that someone so low in station would talk to _them_ in such a manner—and over such a grievous topic, no less!

He hadn’t been cautious. Crowley usually performed with a bit of pageantry—he _liked_ pageantry—but still managed to keep his coat out of the fire, as it were. What he did there, with the whispers, was inelegant—clumsy. Oh, it had the same effect, but it was a bit like slamming a hammer down on a bug when a boot would have done the trick just as well.

He hadn’t had his heart into it. He’d never _truly_ had his heart in doing anything at all for Hell; sure some of it was sort of fun, and some of it had made him laugh as he planned it out, but it wasn’t as though he threw himself into the project. The demon didn’t seek commendations; he actively avoided them. To Crowley, a commendation from Hell signified that some act he committed had gone terribly, _unutterably_ wrong.

Crowley hadn’t cared. Hadn’t cared much for anything since—for awhile.

He imagined that was how he wound up in his current residence: an iron cage.

Numerous opportunities to escape presented themselves here and there, sprouting up like flowers appearing at spring. Building a gibbet took time, time in which he had been sequestered in prison. Had he wished it he could have unlocked the cell door at an opportune moment, ambling out as though he had visited but decided the furnishings simply weren’t up to snuff. He could have slipped out as a snake, finding purchase in the cracks and crevices of stone as he crawled up and out the window. He could have done the very same once pushed inside the gibbet—and yet.

He hadn’t.

Dirty, calloused hands thrust him into the cage, and panic momentarily fluttered up from his stomach at how little space he had within. It was nearly form-fitting, with his arms forced flat at his side by the bars—not that he could do much with the irons encircling his wrists—and legs pressed tightly together.

When the workers applied the collar to his neck to hook to the top of the cage, some of those gathered to watch began to shout at him. “Demon!” they said—amongst other things—and Crowley allowed himself a little amusement that this incident would no doubt be the only time they could call that out and be correct in doing so.

Crowley had not realised how completely _dull_ it would be to hang thirty feet in the air. No one spoke to him; most kept their eyes averted as they passed by him, usually muttering a prayer to themselves as they did so. He wondered briefly if they did it because his darkened glasses had long ago been taken from him; he wagered good, God-fearing villagers _would_ be frightened by eyes slitted and reminiscent of jaundice.

 _“_ D’you have any cards? Oi! I know you hear me!” he shouted at a man who passed beneath his line of sight on the third day, and the villager picked up his pace, staring pointedly at the ground. “We could play Karnöffel. I’ll teach it to you, though you might have to give me some leeway on account of my hands.”

Crowley rattled his arms against the cage, growling to himself as his victim went behind a squat house and disappeared.

He wished he had asked Aziraphale in the past how often it was that people needed to eat. They did it quite a bit, but then they could go a certain amount of time without needing it. _That_ was the part Crowley needed to know. A month? Two? No, two seemed a little long. Then there was the water business, too.

How long could he swing round above their heads, perfectly content, before they started to wonder about him?

He could fake death; he had watched it enough that the signs had become familiar to him, like an old friend he couldn’t quite shake even after growing apart. No need for breathing, lying perfectly still—Crowley excelled at these things. When should he do it? Better still, should he begin to beg now and again for something to eat? Would it be more believable, would it—

What did he care about all that nonsense?

Crowley sagged as much as he could in the cage, sighing to himself.

* * *

On the fourth day, he mostly slept. He enjoyed sleeping in general, and if he could cloister away somewhere, unbothered, he could pass long periods in such a manner, revelling in the bliss of not having to _think,_ not having to _worry_ about anything or anyone. Not that he did, of course.

His limbs were stiff more from the cold than inactivity, and he wriggled a little in his spot, bars painfully frigid against his skin as he blinked up toward the sun. It was easy to sleep; actually, he found it harder to stay awake, perpetually shifting from a bleary doze into sudden, startled wakefulness and back again.

He closed his eyes once more.

* * *

It was the seventh day—Crowley felt a tad pleased that he kept such meticulous track of the days when often months and _years_ slipped between his fingers like sand—when he reviewed his plan.

They _left_ criminals in gibbets after they died! For years and years, just perpetually locked in death’s embrace, spinning and creaking here in the wind, stinking up the village. Crowley hadn’t known _that,_ or perhaps he had forgotten it. He couldn’t very well pretend to be dead for years; doing nothing at all for a week had nearly driven him mad. Not to mention that humans weren’t necessarily the most perceptive creatures, but even they would surely notice a body that never rotted or changed at all, year after year.

What if they declared him a saint? Now—that _would_ be funny, and Crowley mused more seriously over the idea, imagining how annoyed Aziraphale would be to hear about it.

 _“_ Oh, _really,_ this is _too_ much!” He would grumble, and tell Crowley off for his cat-canary-et. al expression, all while barely concealing a traitorous smile of his own.

Crowley wouldn’t see that, though—would he? They had broken off their Arrangement, snapped the fragile truce easily; he wouldn’t wish to drop in and discuss the latest play with the demon over a plate of pastries.

The demon regretted his words—no, he didn’t. No, he _did;_ he had wanted to shout them for some time, had wanted to kneel to the ground and instead of praying, cry up at a cold and unfeeling sky asking just _what_ they sought from him—from any of them.

Crowley only regretted yelling at Aziraphale, but he couldn’t change it.

Fifty-four hundred years of effort, wiped clean with a handful of words. Fifty-four hundred years—gone in an instant.

Crowley swung in the wind, cage eerily squeaking as he shivered and huddled as much as he could against the chill.

Hell was warm, he thought. Suppose he got himself inconveniently Discorporated. Down he’d go, and be toasty for it. Well. It dried his skin out terribly, but small prices to pay.

No, it was stupid. He could very easily slip into a nice inn and warm himself by the fire instead.

Right, but _then_ what? What happened next? He created minor irritations and vexations, gliding here and there—for how long? Another few centuries? Another few _millennia?_ What was the point in all of _that?_ Why did he do it at all?

Because he had to do it.

No, he _didn’t_ have to do it. How often did he tell Aziraphale that? He could hardly chide the angel for using it in an argument and then turn round and use it too, even if he was currently arguing only with himself. What could he do? No one else would engage with him.

No one tried to get _into_ Hell; they all attempted to _leave_ it. Also—there would be no Aziraphale.  
  
That was an excellent point—he had to give himself a pat on the back for that one—but, ah, there was the volley—what did it matter if Aziraphale would pay him no mind and treat him as he would a stranger?

He had no answer in return, and he had not come to any resolution, more torn than before as to what he ought do.

* * *

Crowley resumed sleeping, a couple days ticking past without his notice. People drifted beneath him, and he attempted and failed to imagine himself on a sun-soaked island, sprawled out and comfortable in the heat.

 _“_ You wish to see him?”

 _“_ I’ve only ever viewed one man in a gibbet in my life, and he wept and hollered at all hours. Couldn’t rest for it, and the women started to complain. Bothered the children, is what they said. The eventual _stench_ is what bothered _me._ ”

Crowley had no interest in being gawked at like an animal on display, and he opened his mouth to give them something to _truly_ discuss. There, in the middle of the group of four who had come to view him stood Aziraphale, however, and the demon’s heart stuttered to a stop as the angel stared up at him.

Horror crossed Aziraphale’s face, and he swallowed, looking around quickly before managing to tame his expression into something manageable, something neutral, but it did not go unnoticed.

 _“_ Not much for this sort of thing, are you?” one man elbowed him in the ribs, and Aziraphale laughed nervously.

 _“_ No, I...rather imagine I’m not,” he replied, humour immediately vanishing from his lips when they stopped paying him attention, and he held Crowley’s gaze, helpless to say or do anything until a light flashed through his eyes. “Actually, my family has always been big on—on prayer, you know, and I’d like to, er, say some words over the, ah, wretch.”

His companions frowned en masse, and one of them spoke for the lot. “He is a criminal.”

 _“_ Ah, yes, but doesn’t it just buoy God’s spirits when we pray even for the worst sinners? It’ll only be a moment.”

They relented, stepping off to congregate near to a well, and Aziraphale drew instantly forward, standing almost directly beneath Crowley. “Crowley!”

 _“_ Aziraphale!” Crowley’s damned heart gave that upward heave, that leap that threatened to chuck it out of his body entirely if he didn’t watch it. “You look—well, terrible.”

The angel dropped his mouth into an o! of surprise at Crowley’s clear lack of manners, but the demon stood snug in the knowledge that he spoke the truth. Aziraphale _did_ look terrible—appalling, even. Branches and bracken had caught clearly at his clothing at some point, snaring, tearing, and befouling it, and his hair was quite uncharacteristically mussed.

 _“_ That is a rather rude thing to say,” Aziraphale paused. “And you look worse than I do.”

 _“_ Welcome to my humble abode,” Crowley lifted his hands as much as he could, and Aziraphale chewed fiercely at his bottom lip.

 _“_ You ought to come down from there! Stop playing games!”

 _“_ I’m not playing at anything,” Crowley snapped in return. “Why is it you’re here, angel?”

 _“_ To talk sense into you.”

Crowley snorted. “You didn’t know it’d be me up here; it was pure coincidence.”

The angel threw an anxious peek toward the men he arrived with, lowering his voice. “Not at all. I heard about a man, marked by the Devil and bearing frightening eyes. I hoped—I thought,” Aziraphale shut his eyes for a moment as he quickly corrected himself. “I _thought_ it would be you.”

 _“_ Are you finished yet?” one of the men called.

 _“_ Nearly so—giving him the, er, worst of it,” Aziraphale shouted, swinging his fist a bit before turning once more to Crowley with a hiss. “Come down!”

 _“_ Right now? In broad daylight? With the whole town 'round? That doesn’t seem wise at all.”

 _“_ Later, then. We need to have a talk. Will you—will you do it?”

 _“_ Possibly, if I don’t have anything better on,” the demon remarked casually with a shrug, and Aziraphale took first one step backward and then another, eyes searching Crowley’s face before he finally turned and rejoined his coterie.

Crowley watched him go, and he did not miss the worried glance the angel threw to him over his shoulder.

* * *

It started to rain just around sunset, and Crowley squirmed uncomfortably in his cage. Snow?  Snow was fine. Well, it wasn’t fine—Crowley rather hated snow, as it stood, but it was leagues above rain.

The rain began as a mist, sprinkling sparsely, threatening to quit altogether, and then it switched suddenly to a downpour, pelting down in needling bursts. Crowley blinked back the water and, though he did not _need_ to breathe, technically, he felt compelled to do so, inhaling in shallow, slow breaths as the winter chill sunk into his bones.

Only a little longer and he could finally climb out of the cage.

Climb out of the cage and speak to Aziraphale.

Crowley smiled.

* * *

Something buzzed incessantly at Crowley and, try as he might, he couldn’t quite ignore it. A burble like a stream, growing louder and louder and—

Oh.

It was a voice.

 _“_ Crowley!  _C_ _rowley!_   What are you still doing up there?  Come down!  Aren’t you miserable out here?”

Crowley blinked heavily, head jammed with cotton, and he had drunk _far_ too much to keep his thoughts from skittering in every which direction. Wait—when had he had alcohol?

 _“_ I’m starting to get worried!” Aziraphale called up to him as loudly as he dared. “ _Crowley!_   I’m—I’m going to do something if you don’t!”

That suited Crowley just fine, and he relaxed, edging once more toward sleep when the cage lurched with a creak, lowering itself toward the ground as if descending smoothly down a flight of steps.

Aziraphale reached instinctively out in the darkness, aided only by the light of a waning moon, and he pricked his finger on one of the many nails dotted and studded along the surface of the cage. “Ah! Damn it!” He cursed, sucking on his fingertip. “How can they be so cruel, punishing those who only wish to help?”

 _“’_ S a funny world,” Crowley replied, and even by the pale light he caught the sheen of fear flicker into Aziraphale’s eyes at the slur of his words.

 _“_ You didn’t come and I thought you meant to punish me,” Aziraphale waved his hand over the bars, melting them away easily. “But the rain—I know you hate the cold, and I couldn’t help—I couldn’t—I wondered what kept you.”

The angel’s hands passed over the irons on his wrists, and they dropped promptly to the bottom of the gibbet.

 _“_ And you didn’t answer me, either. Oh, a collar too?” Aziraphale tutted as he took care of it. “Why did you allow them to mistreat you so, Crowley?”

Crowley tottered one step forward, but his legs rebelled at the sudden movement after nearly two weeks tethered to one place, and buckled beneath him.

The angel anticipated the action, easily catching him and absorbing the weight, and Crowley sagged into him, almost overwhelmed. The warmth, the smell, the touch—it was all Aziraphale—Aziraphale, who he believed he wouldn’t see or speak to again.

He tried to say as much, but it must have come out wrong as he felt Aziraphale stiffen against him. “Oh dear. I believe you may have exposure.”

 _“_ P’ssibly,” Crowley agreed agreeably. “What’s that?”

 _“_ You are suffering from the cold.”

 _“_ Mmm...sounds about right,” Crowley murmured, and he warred with himself whether he wanted to stay with his face buried in Aziraphale’s chest or if he wanted to tip his head back and stare into the angel’s face.

He compromised and did neither, his head lolling as he looked up toward the night’s sky, stars shimmering brightly in the inky darkness. That was the one good thing about winter; stars always seemed to shine more the colder it was, and Crowley recalled shaping them and placing them in the heavens.

 _“_ I cannot carry you the entire way, and they will recognise you even if I could. Work with me, Crowley,” Aziraphale’s hands tightened against him. “Crowley—listen to me. Please.”

_Please._

Aziraphale had never said that word to him.

Uttering it with a twinge of urgency caught his attention, and he locked eyes with the angel. “Yes?” Crowley managed, a Herculean effort.

 _“_ Could you possibly be smaller? I can’t think of any other way to smuggle you inside.”

Crowley _could_ be smaller, and he slipped into his snake form, lowering himself toward the ground. Aziraphale stopped him before he could touch scales to the dead grass, awkwardly shrugging out of his cloak with one hand and wrapping it snug round and round Crowley until he was quite lost in the fabric, safe and dry.

He must have dozed for he wriggled upon realising Aziraphale’s gait had stopped, and he cautiously poked his head from the cloak, watching the angel speak to a lad at the door.

The door. So they had entered the hotel, then.

 _“_ All I request is wood. Every stick that you can spare,” Aziraphale said, voice tight as though he spoke through gritted teeth, hand wavering at his temple.

 _“_ It is the winter—”

 _“_ I _am_ aware of that, my dear boy,” Aziraphale cut him off, and Crowley recognised he employed a tone that would be clinically polite in others but was downright angry coming from the angel’s throat.

 _“_ I can try...”

 _“_ There’s a good lad; you take this coin, and you’ll have more when you bring the wood.”

Crowley slid back into the cloak, but it did him little good as Aziraphale knelt level in front of the bed, brushing aside a fold of the cloth to meet the demon’s eyes. “I’m not entirely knowledgeable on all this, but I don’t believe that I ought to get you warm too quickly. Are you going to change or—or stay as you are?”

 _Prefer thisss._ It was easier to be a snake, for the moment; it was easier to be as little like a person as possible, and Crowley curled in on himself, looping his body endlessly until he was a tangled coil inside the cloak.

 _“_ Ah. Well. That is fine, too,” Aziraphale said quietly, covering him when the boy made his quick return, arms full of wood.

Crowley lingered in the cloak for several minutes, comforted as he flicked his tongue out and smelled Aziraphale all around him. Warmth returned slowly to his body in the makeshift cocoon, and his previous sluggishness began to fall away, allowing him to slither languorously from the clothing and down the side of the bed.

Aziraphale sat at the fireplace with his back to Crowley, carefully feeding a twig into the small fire and holding his palm over it to check the heat. The demon crept up onto Aziraphale’s knee, and the angel dropped the piece of wood that he held, nearly jarring Crowley off his leg entirely as he jerked forward.

 _“_ Oh! I—I didn’t know you’d come out. Do you feel warm?”

_Not enough._

Crowley moved across Aziraphale’s leg and onto the stone of the hearth to suck up the heat radiating from the fire, but the angel caught him and lifted him into the air.

 _“_ I don’t think that’s wise,” he tsked, and he ignored Crowley’s petty hiss in response, placing the demon in his lap instead.

Oh. Well. Crowley supposed this _could_ do—if he absolutely _must._

 _“_ Crowley, I am...I am sorry.” Aziraphale stared into the fire, and Crowley tilted his head at the angel’s sudden apology “I didn’t like it either.”

 _I know,_ Crowley said, and Aziraphale shook his head.

 _“_ No, you don’t. I—I asked them about it. Michael and—and some of the others. I said _must_ we? _Does_ she have to die? Couldn’t—couldn’t we step in at the last moment? It is what we do, after-all. Miracles and the like. They told me it wasn’t any of my business, that I had other things assigned to me, and asked if they needed to check in to see how that was going, so I—well, I scuttled off,” Aziraphale waved his hand.

_Should have called Michael a wanker._

Aziraphale laughed, resting his hand on the demon’s back, and Crowley imagined he couldn’t be happier in that moment if he tried. “I don’t know about _that,_ my dear, although he must know it by now.”

 _I’m sssorry too—for sssaying what I did. It’sss not your fault—what happened. We’re_ all _pawnsss, and we’re all kept in the dark._

 _“_ Mmm,” Aziraphale hummed. “I’m afraid I may have to agree with you on that sentiment. After what happened with Jehanne, I hated to leave it as we did, and I searched for you to do my best to mend things.”

_You still wish to do the Agreement?_

_“_ If _you_ want,” Aziraphale countered, glancing down at Crowley out of the corner of his eye, and the demon would have smiled if he had the ability.

_Makesss thingsss easssier, angel._

_“_ Right. It’s only logical,” Aziraphale replied diplomatically. “I sought you out, as I have told you. I thought perhaps I would be too late, but that’s silly, really—you’d only be discorporated. It isn’t as though you can truly be wiped from existence. Er, well—”

 _Not without holy water,_ Crowley supplied, realising that he spoke far too quickly only when Aziraphale looked down, studying him carefully.

Ah, what luck that he had chosen to stay a snake. Snakes didn’t have expressions. Snakes didn’t have much of anything, truth be told; they merely flicked their tongues and lounged about lazily.

 _“_ Yes.” Aziraphale said after a long moment’s reflection. “Quite—quite right on that front. Oh! Do you know that I nearly ran into you once before, last year?”

 _And you didn’t ssay hullo?_ Crowley had not known that, and wondered how Aziraphale spotted him without Crowley seeing the angel.

 _“_ Absolutely not! It was at Jehanne’s tower, and you were rather lucky as it wasn’t just me there. If they’d caught you...” Aziraphale trailed off, and began to absentmindedly run his hand down Crowley’s back as he thought over the incident.

Crowley didn’t dare move for fear of drawing Aziraphale’s attention to his distracted stroking as the angel’s fingers ran down the length of his spine. He wished he hadn’t been a snake, then admitted immediately how stupid such a thought was; Aziraphale would hardly be doing it otherwise.

 _“_ They smelled you, you know,” Aziraphale murmured, and an icy touch of anxiety slipped into Crowley’s stomach at the realisation that he lowered his guard too much and had nearly courted disaster.  “The evil. I had a, um, hell of a time convincing them one _would_ smell evil in a prison, if one were to scent it, after-all, and I tried to hold them at bay long enough that you could go out undetected.”

Crowley was surprised but found the words to thank Aziraphale weighed heavily on his tongue, and the angel pressed onward with a little smile that said he understood.

 _“_ I always found it odd, them calling it ‘the scent of evil’. You don’t smell to me.”

 _Oh?_ Crowley found himself somewhat disappointed, though he could not say why.

 _“_ Well...you _do—_ smell, I mean—but not evil. Not bad. Or if it is evil it’s—not what I thought it would be.”

Crowley would have raised an eyebrow at this point. He could hardly bear to be in some demons’ company, and while their personality was a part of that, it was the _stench_ that really did it. Hastur rose prominently to mind, and Crowley wondered if the angel might not perhaps have defective faculties of smell.

 _“_ It’s like...oh, I don’t know,” Aziraphale mused, tracing his finger across Crowley’s scales lightly. “A nice fire. One you’d wish to curl up to on a cold winter day, with a—a book, and some spicy mead. Cosy...safe.”

He paused, and Crowley could almost _feel_ his embarrassment. The demon gave a sympathetic flick of his tongue, but Aziraphale probably didn’t register the gesture as such.

 _“_ Is—is that right? Is that what you’re, ah, ‘going for’?”

_If you’re asssking me whether I try to ssmell good, angel, then yesss, I sssuppose I do try to avoid reminding people of rubbish if I can help it._

Aziraphale chuckled, gazing down, and his good-humour was quickly replaced with a note of horror as he drew his hand near to his chest, closing it into a fist. “Oh, I—how long was I—”

 _Not long at all,_ Crowley chirped, and snagged upon an idea. _I’m ssstill...quite cold...it helpsss...sssince you won’t let me on the ssstone…_

The angel gave him a side-long glance, not quite believing him, looking for proof that Crowley played at some game, and the demon offered him a blank expression in return. Snakes were quite good at that. Maybe he should try to be a serpent more often when around Aziraphale; it definitely afforded him certain advantages.

 _“_ I know what you’ve been doing with me all this time. I’ve noticed,” Aziraphale said quietly, and Crowley went still at his words.

He knew, then. Granted it had only taken five millennia, but Crowley always had a voice in the back of his mind telling him that he would have to explain himself, would have to try to reason and sway a being that moved only as quickly as dripping honey.

It was impossible, and he was so ill-prepared—

 _“_ You’ve been trying to get me to ‘lighten up’,” Aziraphale said, calling his finger quotes out of retirement.

 _I—yess. That. Of courssse. Right. Lighten up._ Crowley stumbled over himself to take the out the angel unwittingly gave, relief flooding through him.

 _“_ I understand that I may be a bit difficult, and it must be hard for you, with what you said about being the only one on your side,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley wriggled uncomfortably, piling in on himself at being reminded of words spoken that he’d sooner prefer to forget. “You’ve always struck me as being _different_. Different than the other demons. We all started from the same spot—I realise that—but it’s as though there’s something from Heaven left in you.”

Crowley let out a half-hearted hiss for appearance’s sake, and Aziraphale smiled softly. _Well. You aren’t like the other angelsss, then. How d’you like_ that?

Aziraphale’s smile faded, and he looked back to the fire. “I fear that’s an idea I’ve considered for some time now.”

Crowley had meant it as a playful repartee, not to be used as melancholic self-reflection, and he rested his head against Aziraphale’s knee. _Angel—_

A knock on the door startled them both, and Aziraphale rose in a flight of nervousness, scooping up Crowley gently. “Just a minute!” He called, then directed in a quieter voice to Crowley, “That’ll be the boy with the wood.”

 _You think?_ Crowley replied dryly. He curled instinctively around Aziraphale’s hand, inching up his wrist and twining along his right arm.

The angel clucked at him. “Now, now; we mustn’t be doing that. You’ll frighten him if you come with me.”

Crowley grumbled to himself, falling limply onto the bed when Aziraphale rested his hand upon the blankets, and he hid in the cloak just as the angel opened the door for the lad to bring in his collection of firewood.

 _“_ I _do_ thank-you. This ought to be enough for the evening—here, have this for your trouble.”

Aziraphale must have rewarded him with quite a coin indeed judging from the boy’s sputtered and enthusiastic thank-yous, and the angel returned soon enough to the bed, which dipped beneath his weight.

 _“_ Would you like me to put you back at the fire?”

 _Aren’t you coming?_ Crowley wondered, emerging from the cloak in curiosity, and Aziraphale passed a hand over his face at the question.

 _“_ No. I don’t often sleep—too much to see! Too much to do!” The angel waggled his hand in the air. “But I find I am _exhausted._ I rode without pause to get here, and I believe I need a bit of a lie-down.”

Watching Aziraphale wearily tug off his boots, Crowley looked him over, taking inventory of his muddied braies and his torn tunic. The angel, generally so fastidious, had ignored his own person in his mad dash to—to save Crowley. That _was_ it, wasn’t it?

_To save him._

Crowley twitched his tail, and Aziraphale touched a hand to his trousers before plucking at his shirt, both of which now looked as though the finishing stitches had just been applied, pristine and clean and never-before-worn.

Aziraphale looked at him, melting a little. “Oh, Crowley. You didn’t have to do that for me,” he said, but he beamed at the simple gesture, his eyes crinkling at the corners, and when Crowley’s heart swooped up at the angel’s affectionate smile, he knew that he _absolutely_ had to do it.

_Eh. It’sss nothing._

_“_ Well. I suppose it’s bed-time for me, then,” Aziraphale said pointedly, and Crowley chose not to move, becoming instead an interesting snake pattern along the surface of the blanket.

 _A good idea,_ he said amiably, relishing the fidgeting of the angel.

 _“_ I think...that is to say I might...” Aziraphale frowned, and changed the course of his speech. “I wonder if you’re still cold, Crowley?”

Crowley had a line he could use, and he wagered that he may never get to try it again so he might as well go for it. _Sssleeping is better with company._

 _“_ Yes; so I’ve been told,” he nodded, and Crowley instantly entertained a flash of jealousy at the knowledge that someone had, at some point in the past, tried the exact same gambit with _his_ angel. “I’m going to put out the light now, if that’s all right with you.”

Aziraphale extinguished the candles, and the room plunged into a snug darkness permeated only by the fire in the hearth, which popped and snapped merrily.

The demon listened to the angel shift around in the dark, disturbing the blankets and squirming about until he finally got comfortable, sighing and settling on the feather mattress, and Crowley crept along, taking up residence on Aziraphale’s chest.

Neither of them said anything for a moment, and then Aziraphale spoke, his voice vibrating up through Crowley. “You needn’t stay out like that all night; it must be quite uncomfortable for you. You can come under here with me and keep warm—unless you prefer to stay as you are. Possibly I am—am being too presumptuous?”

Crowley came alive at the offer, quickly slithering beneath the sheets, and he was quite glad that he had cleaned the angel’s clothing for him as he pressed into Aziraphale, cutting diagonally across his chest and resting his head in the crook of the angel’s neck.

 _“_ We will have to be up early to leave this town; I daresay the people will suspect that I have something to do with your disappearance, and I’m not overly keen for them to hoist me up in one of those contraptions.”

 _Early isss fine,_ he said calmly. Far more calmly than how he felt as he pictured a mob of men accosting Aziraphale for helping Crowley—helping Crowley when he’d done something foolish after wallowing in his own misery.

He’d like to see them _try_ to jam Aziraphale in a gibbet.

Aziraphale yawned, draping his right hand over Crowley. “Don’t want to roll over and accidentally crush you in the middle of the night,” he murmured by way of explanation, his consonants and vowels slipping and bumbling into each other.

_You wouldn’t._

_“_ Might,” Aziraphale mumbled, his thumb rubbing sleepily into Crowley’s side, and it slowed before eventually stopping as his breathing evened out.

Fingers twitching, he closed his hand tighter against him reflexively, and Crowley tucked his head in nearer to Aziraphale’s jaw, warm and content as he joined the angel in sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:
> 
> -I don't know if you got it (I hope you did!) but if not, the woman was Joan of Arc. Or Jehanne. Or Jeanne. Etc., etc., etc. She really did wear men's clothing in jail to keep from getting raped, and it snagged her a charge of crossdressing. She argued her case well, and they dropped it.  
> -Braies were a type of trouser acting as a sort of prototype shorts, stopping generally at the knee.  
> -They truly did think apricots caused fevers! This led to the fruit being relatively unpopular (and uncommon) until Louis the XIV planted some in his gardens at Versailles a few centuries later.  
> -Joan/Jehanne/Jeanne tried a few escape attempts, including the aforementioned seventy foot drop into the moat's soil below. Unfortunately, none of them worked (obviously).  
> -Yes, Michael was one of the people who came to her in her dreams. How's that for a coincidence?  
> -I purposely inverted what you'd expect they would come to bring to Jehanne, thus, Crowley's brought her food and Aziraphale's brought her clothing. I liked the idea of it.  
> -Four suited playing cards would be a *fairly* new invention (to Europe at least) at the time, with the first recorded incidence of them being in 1365. The earliest dated card game in Europe that's been identified thus far seems to have only originated in 1426 in Bavaria and is the card game that I referenced.  
> -Gibbets were these cages that were form-fitted to a person's body and came in all sorts of styles and shapes. Some conformed to their entire body, some were basically just a cage, some had a person's arms dangling free, and so forth and so on. The blacksmith that made them basically was just told "give us a cage!" and went with it. It was usually the punishment for treason early on, but there were other crimes it served the punishment for, like thievery and piracy. They left a person's body up until they died and then some; the body would rot, and people complained about the sight and smell of it. Often the skeletal remains stayed up and became local landmarks, kind of like "turn left--and if you hit Thomas Parson, you've gone too far". They also put nails along the outside of the cage to deter people from helping those inside, and strung them up thirty feet in the air to further prevent any kindhearted, sympathetic people. Monarchs had to be careful sticking people in gibbets because if the rulers were unpopular, the criminals became venerated in the minds of the townspeople, and their body parts were collected as relics. That happened with Edward II when he had two enemies of his placed into gibbets. Hello, relative! We meet again.  
> -Demons probably can't get exposure (hypothermia), but I imagine they can get Extremely Cold, and Crowley is The Serpent, after-all. And snakes don't like the cold--especially not winter. Also consider: I do what I want.
> 
> I think that's about it! I'm super sleepy and need a nap, so if you see a TONNE of errors, you'll understand why. Also this one is quite long; the others won't be, I'm sure. And I'm middling my way through the next bit, so it ought to be a few days before a new part. Enjoy this one because it is Big and has a lot of Strong Things, Possibly.
> 
> Thanks for reading!! Hope you enjoy(ed) it!
> 
> PS: if you want to know my mood for this, for probably most of the end I just kept listening to this song Spotify JUST recommended to me called "What Are We Waiting For?" with Leslie Odom Jr. and Nicolette Robinson.
> 
> YEAH.


	9. 1518 AD & 1543 AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley takes part in a tournament.

_1518 AD_  

 _“_ It doesn’t do them any good at all, angel,” Crowley said, and if he surprised Aziraphale, he hid it well.

 _“_ Hullo, Crowley.” The angel smiled as the demon sidled up easily to his side, as though he fit there naturally--like he belonged.  Sometimes Crowley could convince himself that he did.

 _“_ It doesn’t work,” Crowley nodded with his chin toward the people in the street in front of them.

The townspeople gyrated wildly, contorting and shimmying along in every open space, together with partners or on their own. Those that had danced for an hour or so jerked spasmodically, exhausted but compelled to keep twitching along like marionettes dangled at the end of invisible strings, while those that had just begun twirled and spun around, fresh and lithe upon their feet.

The woman that Aziraphale blessed quickly resumed her activity, hopping about without any semblance of rhythm, and Crowley looked over his darkened spectacles at the angel, holding his hand out in the nicest _I-told-you-so_ fashion that he could manage.

 _“_ So you’re behind this, then?”

 _“_ Nope,” Crowley replied easily, leaning back into the front of the building as he viewed the humans’ antics. “I tried to stop a couple of ‘em earlier; I get so blessed _tired_ of hearing all the stomping and clapping. They go right back to it, though, as if I haven’t done a thing.”

 _“_ Ah, yes. I wager that would be tiresome,” Aziraphale agreed in a tone that said he did not believe for a moment that was why Crowley did it. “What I can’t figure out is why they have hired musicians.  Isn’t that just encouragement?”

A line of people played various instruments, accompanying the frenetic motions of the tired dancers, and Crowley shrugged. “I found it to be a bit like putting a log on a fire and hoping the flames die out. You’ll like this one, angel—they decided blood-letting isn’t the cure this time. Want to guess what is?”

 _“_ What?” Aziraphale wondered suspiciously.

 _“_ _More_ dancing. No, really!” Crowley laughed. “They’ve opened two halls, a market, and see?  Over there?  A new stage.”

Aziraphale rubbed at his temple in exasperation. “When you take everything into consideration, it’s a wonder they didn’t all completely die out _ages_ ago.”

 _“_ Ah, well. They’re tenacious little buggers, aren’t they? They’ll sort it out soon enough,” Crowley rocked forward on his heels, pushing away from the wall.  He reached his hand out to Aziraphale, palm up, and the angel’s eyebrows twitched together. “Care to dance?”

 _“_ With—with you?” Aziraphale faced the crowd but looked at Crowley from the corner of his eyes. “No.  I don’t dance.”

 _“_ Oh, _come on,_ ” Crowley wheedled, keeping his fists near to his waist while swinging his hips as he circled the angel. “It’ll be fun. When in Rome, as they say.”

 _“_ We aren’t in Rome.”

 _“_ Well. When in Salsbourg, then,” Crowley corrected, completing one orbit around Aziraphale.

 _“_ Angels—angels don’t dance.”

 _“_ Suit yourself.” Crowley knew better than to press too far, and he shuffled backward, still facing the angel as he merged into the crowd.

Crowley took a woman’s hand, helping her to spin, and soon found himself in the middle of a group of people, all dancing at different paces in different rhythms.

 _“_ That isn’t very kind of you, mocking them,” Aziraphale called from his position.

 _“_ Mocking!  I _never._ This is my favourite song,” Crowley pointed at one of the men who played the lute, and wiggled on the spot. “I love that—that plucking.  Can’t be beat.”

Aziraphale shook his head, but Crowley didn’t miss his quick smile.

* * *

  _1_ _543 AD (July)_

 _“_ Good Lord, Crowley—your _clothing!_ ”

 _“_ _Hullo,_ Aziraphale!” Crowley sang, and Aziraphale forgot himself as he always did upon being greeted, falling into a genuine smile.

 _“_ Good afternoon, Crowley,” he replied, and he poked his finger gingerly into the chest of Crowley’s doublet. “Is this...are you wearing padding?”

 _“_ I am!” Crowley tilted a little to show off his artificially inflated figure produced by wearing additional cloth beneath the necessary clothing. “You’ve seen what the King looks like; everyone’s emulating him.  Wouldn’t want to lose my head on account of his vanity.”

 _“_ I’m not emulating him...” Aziraphale looked down at his own shirt-front, resting his hand on his stomach with a frown.

 _“_ Eh, I wouldn’t worry about it.  Consider yourself lucky—it gets hot as blazes.”

 _“_ And the fur?” Gesturing to the silver fur lining the edges and collar of his tunic, Aziraphale raised an eyebrow.

 _“_ Well—it’s cool, isn’t it?” Crowley wondered, and Aziraphale’s eyebrow only inched higher. “It _is!_ ”

 _“_ I think it’s all a bit silly,” Aziraphale delivered his judgment on the subject, and Crowley waved away his declaration.

 _“_ So, ah. What do _you_ think of the King?”

They walked side-by-side beneath the shade of trees, leaves rustling against the warm breeze that threatened to lift and carry Crowley’s feathered hat away.  Aziraphale shook his head. “A complicated question. He is a _wonderful_ singer, and a beautiful composer of music _and_ literature.”

 _“_ He is also, of course, _completely_ bonkers.”

 _“_ There is that, yes,” Aziraphale agreed. “Executing all of those people, one after the other. They used to be his councillors. His _friends!_ ”

 _“_ His wives,” Crowley added, and Aziraphale sighed.

 _“_ Separated from the Church, ignored the Pope—”

 _“_ I quite liked that bit, the rebellion,” Crowley interrupted.

 _“_ You would,” Aziraphale returned just as quickly, and Crowley tilted his head, admitting the point.

 _“_ It’s what came after that put me off. The other bit, breaking away out of love, ignoring what One Ought Do, well...”

 _“_ Love?” Aziraphale stopped, and Crowley rounded back on him, curious. “This wasn’t love.”

 _“_ No?” Crowley wondered.

 _“_ It was lust,” the angel corrected primly, waggling his shoulders. “It was sex.”

 _“_ It was what?”

Aziraphale offered the demon a roll of his eyes. “You heard me perfectly well, you old serpent, but if you need me to say it again—it was _sex._ Nothing more.”

 _“_ And how d’you know that? Did you talk to him about it?  Have a spot of tea and discuss his marriages?”

 _“_ I didn’t have to,” Aziraphale said, resuming their walk, and Crowley hopped forward to rejoin him. “You can’t understand it—”

 _“_ Hold on— _hold on,_ ” Crowley grabbed Aziraphale by his shoulders, halting him. The demon had places to go; he could see the squire across the way, waving to get his attention, but he ignored him, staring instead at the angel. “What can’t I understand?  Lust?”

 _“_ Of course not—I think that’s rather in your lot’s wheelhouse,” Aziraphale lifted his hand into the air. “I meant love.”

 _“_ I know about love,” Crowley hissed, and he felt Aziraphale shrug beneath his hands.

 _“_ In an academic sense, I suppose you would,” he allowed, and Crowley repressed the urge to give the angel a good shake.

In an academic sense!

_In an academic sense!_

How many damned— _blessed—_ years had he spent searching for Aziraphale?  How many years had he kept a careful eye on the angel?  How many years had he delighted in the fewest of words, the smallest of touches?

What was it he felt if not—

 _“_ I can _feel_ love, after-all, so I needn’t talk to the king to form my opinion,” Aziraphale continued, and Crowley froze on the spot, a mounting sense of horror welling within him.

He could _feel_ it?

Why hadn’t anyone told him _that?_ Granted, it didn’t seem like relevant information from Hell’s perspective, but to _Crowley_ —the demon could think of nothing more important than _knowing angels could sense that sort of thing._

Crowley immediately released Aziraphale, possibly gave him a bit of a shove as the angel stumbled a little, offering him an odd look.

Could Aziraphale feel it by touch?  No; he hadn’t needed to be in the presence of the King to realise he was just a randy man, but what if it amplified it, like cupping hands to your mouth and shouting quite loudly?

 _“_ Are you all right, Crowley?”

 _“_ Yeah, I’ve—I’ve got to get ready. Over...there,” he pointed to the squire, who had taken to waving both arms while wearing a rather frustrated expression.

 _“_ My apologies for keeping you so long. I think I will watch the festivities, as I’m here.”

 _“_ Oh yeah?  Sure, of course,” Crowley had begun to creep backward from Aziraphale, not turning his back on him as though the angel might suddenly pounce if he did. “Should be nice. Just a quick question before you go.”

 _“_ Yes?”

 _“_ Your lot can sense love from—from anything, can it?”

 _“_ If you are going to ask me a list of absurd things, such as ‘can you sense love from a rock, Aziraphale?’ or ‘Aziraphale, tell me if this beetroot loves you’, I will stop you _right_ now, Crowley.”

 _“_ No, no, no; innocent question,” Crowley held up his hands, and Aziraphale cautiously searched his face before answering.

 _“_ I suppose that I can; why do you ask?”

 _“_ No reason. Completely curious. Must be off now!”

 _“_ Good luck!” Aziraphale called brightly to him as Crowley spun on his heel, and the demon held a hand over his racing heart as he took long strides to put distance between him and his angel.

* * *

 Crowley found armour to be an interesting concept. Every year humans attempted to improve on the design—the durability—of it, yet still all it took was a well aimed poke of a blade and that was that. The weapons, too, improved, and Crowley could already see that those relatively new firearms would eventually overtake swords and spears.

The _point_ of it was—well, Crowley didn’t have a point beyond armour being uncomfortable, and he shifted somewhat on the horse, careful not to move too much and fall off entirely, which he had already done once. The bloody _horse._   Even worse than the armour, if you asked him, and the beast pranced up and down, lifting its legs sprightly, excited for what would come, and he passed along the woodwork stands where the spectators congregated.

He stopped before Aziraphale, who looked tentatively at him until he raised his visor. The angel smiled then, coming nearer to the railing and standing at a level perhaps two arms’ length above Crowley. “Oh. I didn’t—didn’t recognise you under all that.  What’s this for?” Aziraphale mused, stretching down in order to run his hand atop the plumage on the demon’s helmet.

 _“_ They’re awarded points if they take it from me—you don’t get out much at all, do you?”

 _“_ I get out plenty, just not to one of these events,” Aziraphale grumbled. “Never been, you know. This’ll be my first.”

 _“_ Right,” Crowley spun his horse around as it seemed the thing to do. “Watch anyone that you like, though you ought to keep your eye on me.  I mean to win it all.”

 _“_ Of course,” Aziraphale said indulgently, and Crowley pulled up on the reins a bit. He had seen fair maiden give away all sorts of favours to _all sorts_ of brutes, and he wondered if he might play the game as well.

 _“_ Have a handkerchief on you? Any cloth or the like?” Crowley prodded, ready to slide easily into denial, protest that he meant it as a joke if Aziraphale questioned him.

 _“_ Oh! Do you need one? I may have—” The angel blinked and then began to feel at his shirt-front, drifting his hand down toward the purse that he carried.

Crowley realised he did not want to take Aziraphale’s handkerchief to wipe away grime and then return it to the angel, and he cursed himself for thinking his ploy might have worked. “No, I—forget it.”

 _“_ Ah, actually, now that you’ve mentioned it...give me a moment...” Aziraphale bowed his head, holding out one finger to stay Crowley from departing too soon. “I do have something you can have that is cloth.”

Triumphantly he plucked out a garish, clashing, multi-coloured and generally altogether hideous scarf, and he proudly held it out to Crowley.

 _“_ That is—what is this?” Crowley sputtered, so offended by the colouring, the pattern, the very _existence_ of the scrap of clothing that his brain shut itself down momentarily.

 _“_ A scarf!” Aziraphale stated, pleased.

 _“_ No, I know _what_ it is—I mean _why?_ ”

Aziraphale peered down at it. “Do you recall whenever you brought me almonds?”

 _“_ Been awhile, but I think I remember something of it.” Crowley shrugged, as if he couldn’t almost play back their conversation verbatim if Aziraphale asked him. “In a tavern, right?”

 _“_ I thought I ought to do something for you. You never seem particularly keen on eating, but you do love your...fashion...” Aziraphale offered him a sideways look, as though he wouldn’t particularly call what Crowley wore ‘fashion’, “And I saw this--in a marketplace. I thought it would be just lovely.”

 _“_ For who?”

 _“_ Why—you!” Aziraphale held it out to him, and Crowley balked.

 _“_ You _paid_ for this, angel?  With actual coin and everything?  Are you _certain_ you gave the man something for it? He didn’t just throw it out and you picked it up in passing?”

 _“_ You needn’t be snippy; if it isn’t to your liking, I shall hang on to it for myself,” Aziraphale said, and made motion to do just that, to tuck it away back into his purse and never speak on it again.

 _“_ I didn’t _say_ that, now did I?” Crowley lunged forward on the horse, tugging the scarf away from Aziraphale.  As he tied it around his left wrist as best he could, he caught the small, smug smile that crossed the angel’s face.

He had been had!  Aziraphale teased him, and he hadn’t known until he walked directly into it, like one of those great big cobwebs that stretch from tree to tree and nail you straight in the face when you least expected it.

And he couldn’t say a _word_ about it!

 _“_ Be careful—it looks awfully dangerous,” Aziraphale admonished, and Crowley scoffed.

 _“_ What, both of us riding toward one another fast as we can, pointing sharpened sticks at each other? Can’t see why you’d think that,” the demon replied dryly, flicking his visor down to cover his eyes as he swivelled his horse back toward the main grounds.

The fellow that chose to square off against Crowley sat massive on his horse, which was all the same to the demon. The bigger the man, the easier the target.

Possibly Crowley shouldn’t have padded himself up that day.

Crowley’s horse danced as he faced down his opponent, and after a brief pause, he gave it a nudge. The creature cantered forward, wind whistling around the demon’s armour as he leaned over the horse’s neck, readying his lance.

They missed one another, however; the man clipped just a fraction too far to the right, avoiding any glancing blow from Crowley’s weapon, and the demon rounded back, preparing for a second attempt as those in the crowd shouted out for blood—or, at least, for some sort of collision.

 _“_ Go on, then,” Crowley muttered to his horse, once more squeezing his heels into its sides, and it darted to life, dirt thrown up beneath its hooves as they raced toward the knight. It was clear there would be no missing that time, and Crowley directed his lance toward the man’s chest.

The knight entertained a similar idea, and both weapons struck true.  Crowley’s splintered instantly, exploding into what seemed to be a hundred tiny, fragmented pieces that flicked up and around him.  His opponent’s lance held strong, caught Crowley in the centre of his chest, and then the demon found his horse carrying on without him, jogging on as he flew backward from the blow.

Crowley slammed into the ground, feeling somewhat as though the horse had returned and stomped all over him in the process.  He didn’t _need_ to breathe, so why in Heaven’s name did it hurt so much to have the wind knocked out of him?

He groaned, shutting his eyes as the crowd’s cheering turned to ringing in his ears, distant and tinny, and somewhere nearby came the clacking of approaching armour.

Oh, right. Crowley had to stand up.

The demon sat up—which really was the first step in all of that.  You sit up, you stand up, and there you are!  He slipped, however, and fell to the ground again, his hand reaching desperately for the sword at his side.

His opponent had already unsheathed his sword and loomed over him, blotting out the sun as he swung down at Crowley.

Crowley didn’t worry; his armour was far too thick to permit the blade from shearing through it, and once he regained his wits and shook off the jarring sensation of being hurled from his horse, he could easily parry.

The knight uttered a little cry, suddenly losing his grip on his blade. Once lost he struggled to recapture it, grasping wildly in the air as the sword pinged off his arm from his frantic moments, spinning end over end before eventually burying itself into the dirt perhaps a yard or so from Crowley.

 _“_ Well. That’s a bit of bad luck, isn’t it?” Crowley said, because it seemed to the demon that _something_ ought to be said in such an embarrassing situation. He had pinned Crowley right where he wanted and then—oop!—lost his chance due to fumbling fingers.

The crowd shouted, and Crowley couldn’t tell whether they supported him or ordered the knight to obliterate him instead.  One voice given at a full-bodied shout, however, he heard clearer than all the rest.

 _“_ Go on!  You can do it!”

Crowley rolled his eyes at the angel’s chipper cheer, as though he watched the demon attempt to throw a horseshoe onto a stick rather than fend off a rather large fellow possessing a big, sharp blade.

He hadn’t wanted to do this—not in this manner, anyway. He envisioned himself brushing the knight off his horse and hopping down, swaggering over in order to collect a surrender from the man. It would be simple and clean, Aziraphale would be _quite_ impressed with his skill, and that would be that.

Now he lie stretched out, only given a reprieve due to the man’s clumsiness. He might have simply thrown the towel in, not thrilled with the prospect of some drawn-out, clashing fight—but Aziraphale watched.

He didn’t want the angel to smile sympathetically, possibly give him a gentle pat and say ‘oh, you really were quite good; don’t be so hard on yourself! I could never!’ knowing all the while that the angel was perfectly aware that he _could,_ if he so chose.

Crowley growled, pushing himself up and tugging out his sword as the knight returned, and they circled each other warily.  A few jabs here, a few lunges there, and Crowley had started to get annoyed when an opening presented itself.

He caught his sword in the slit of the knight’s visor but pressed no farther.  "I think this is the point where you want to yield, unless you’re particularly fond of being poked in the brain,” Crowley noted lightly, and the knight chuckled, the laughter rumbling within his casing of metal.

 _“_ I yield,” he called, and Crowley pulled his sword out carefully, turning to glance at the crowd.

He searched and found Aziraphale in the stands, still near to the front, clapping, and when they met eyes, the angel held both thumbs up instead with a wide grin.

Crowley swallowed as he sheathed his sword. Aziraphale was obviously delighted, and something the uneducated may have termed as ‘Giddiness’ bubbled within him at the realisation that _he—_ in that very moment—had brought the angel such pleasure.

* * *

  _“_ Some sack, then, for the both of us,” Crowley shouted to be heard over the din in the tavern, gesturing to himself and to Aziraphale as the angel sat down beside him at the small table.

 _“_ You were splendid out there, you know. Oh! Thank-you,” Aziraphale said as the drinks arrived.

 _“_ When was that, before or after he knocked me from my horse?” Crowley wondered, taking a swig of the sweet alcohol as Aziraphale peered down into his cup as though looking for the appropriate answer in the drink.

 _“_ You broke your lance—that netted you a few points,” Aziraphale mentioned helpfully, and Crowley leaned back in his seat.

 _“_ Quick learner,” he said appreciatively, and the angel glanced at him out of the corner of his eyes, smiling faintly.

 _“_ Well. Good listener, really. I had a particularly loquacious fellow to my right who was only too happy to explain to me what the...system was. I didn’t like at all how that—that miscreant acted, knocking you off as he did.”

Crowley snorted, downing more of the drink. Downed the rest of it, actually—and he gestured for more.  “It’s not often done anymore, especially after what happened with the King. Puts a bit of a damper on the festivities when your legs get crushed under a horse, but he didn’t have any objections here, so it’s allowed. Suppose he probably hoped _I’d_ have the bloody thing come down on me, too.”

 _“_ Oh.” Aziraphale said quietly, and Crowley thought it a very strange response indeed.

 _“ ‘_ Oh’?  How d’you mean, ‘oh’?”

 _“_ Just—oh,” Aziraphale offered, nodding his thanks to the man who replenished Crowley’s drink for him, and when he caught Crowley staring at him, he looked instead to his cup. “I didn’t know. That one could unseat the other. That’s all.”

 _“_ All right, then,” Crowley said, and the angel relaxed. _Why_ did the angel relax? Why— “Oh, you didn’t. You _didn’t._ ”

Aziraphale raised his eyebrows over the edge of his cup. “Hmmm?” he hummed in response, and Crowley thumped his hand on the table, startling the angel into a slight jump.

 _“_ The sword bit! He never dropped it.”

 _“_ As I recall, he rather did,” Aziraphale replied innocently, still speaking behind the cup as though obscuring the lower half of his face hid him utterly from the demon.

 _“_ _Gah!_ ” Crowley sunk into his seat, covering his face with both his hands. “That’s cheating, you know! You _cheated._ How’s that feel on your—your _conscience?_ ”

As he peeked through his fingers at Aziraphale, the angel squirmed up straighter in his seat, possessing the bearing of a being that considered himself completely in the right. “I thought that _he_ played dirty, and I helped to level the field, as it were. I did a deed that came from a place of good, not malice.”

 _“_ Oh, shut it.” Crowley turned to brooding, hunching up his shoulders and holding his cup with both hands. He didn’t feel very victorious in the moment; how could he preen in front of Aziraphale if the angel had provided him his win?

Aziraphale bumped his elbow gently into Crowley’s ribs. “You would have won regardless. _Possibly_ I might have made his sword somewhat slippery, but that was it. You obtained the yield in the end—that was all your own talent and had nothing whatsoever to do with me. No need to sulk, my dear.”

 _“_ I don’t sulk,” Crowley hissed, and Aziraphale nodded.

 _“_ Of course not,” he clucked soothingly, and then once more hid behind his cup. “You didn’t keep any of your favours, then?”

Crowley had started to take a drink of his own and promptly inhaled the sack, choking and coughing on the alcohol. “Favours?” He attempted to return to a semblance of cool, leaning sideways in his seat to better look at Aziraphale in his new, jaunty, without-a-care angle. His voice, however, scratched and rasped, and Crowley cursed the beverage inwardly.

 _“_ Mhm,” Aziraphale said breezily. “Flowers, cloth, and the like.  Women give them to those jousters they wish to win.”

 _“_ Yeah, I _know_ what favours are. I thought you didn’t get out much, angel,” Crowley managed, voice not at all heading toward what might be considered squeaky.  Aziraphale knew about favours?  If he was quite aware of them, did that mean he had understood what Crowley asked of him?  Was the scarf a simple gift, or had he offered it just as the women did?  Which parts of Aziraphale’s naivete were for show and which were genuine?

Aziraphale snorted, oblivious to the mountain of questions he had kicked up inside the demon. “ _You_ said that; I didn’t. I read, and I watch people. They didn’t have the opportunity to offer anything to you earlier—I kept you behind too long, I’m afraid—but they fairly showered you in it after-ward.”

 _“_ Yeah, well, you know how it is. No need to carry around armfuls of—of bouquets, and what have you,” Crowley shrugged, arms out to better convey that the trinkets didn’t concern him, and Aziraphale let out a small exclamation, clasping at the demon’s right wrist.

 _“_ Oh! I thought for sure you would have thrown it away whenever I wasn’t looking,” the angel murmured, running his fingers along the scarf that Crowley affixed to his arm, just past the cuff of his sleeve, and the demon fidgeted, embarrassed that the article of clothing had garnered any special attention.

 _“_ What? Nah. I thought, ‘if he went to the trouble, I may as well’. Can’t wear it now for the heat—not properly—so I popped it on here. Possibly it could catch on as a fashion _trend._ I’m good at that, you know; started a few of my own.”

Aziraphale frowned.

 _“_ What?”

 _“_ I’m not certain that I believe you.”

 _“_ I have!” Crowley cried, and then dipped his chin toward Aziraphale’s hand. “Rings on your little finger, for example.”

Aziraphale covered the offensive article in question, aghast. “But I— _hang on._ I’ve had this for _several_ millennia!”

Crowley laughed, and Aziraphale shoved him gently. “Had you for a moment, angel.”

 _“_ I believe you did,” he admitted, worrying at the ring with a smile, his gaze flicking up to meet Crowley’s, and he didn’t seem surprised to find the demon watching him. “It’s nice to see you again, Crowley," he said, voice gentle.

 _“_ I was hoping I’d run into you,” Crowley responded. Just chucked it out there, like nothing. He wanted to say it every time that they met, every time that they spoke, every time that they touched, every time that they sat together in comfortable silence, close enough that Crowley could feel the warmth from Aziraphale’s body. He never could, however, but the euphoria of his win in the tournament (whether fairly acquired or not; he still hadn’t made a determination on that yet) spurred him to simply admit it, as though it wasn’t something big for either of them.

Aziraphale said nothing for a moment, and then his smile spread, his eyes softening in its wake. “I suppose I was hoping for that, too.”

 _“_ I—I saw what you did, you know,” Crowley swallowed against his elation that Aziraphale hadn’t batted him away—had _agreed,_ rather!  He changed the topic, though; it had been one the demon had wished to broach for some time and forgot to mention when they last met.

 _“_ Pardon?” Aziraphale wondered, looking a fraction lost, and Crowley smirked.

"A while ago.  The Sistine Chapel.  You’ve put yourself in it— _cheeky._ ”

 _“_ I did _no_ such thing,” Aziraphale argued. “I could hardly paint something so magnificent; the artist is—”

 _“_ I _know_ who the artist is, but that isn’t what I meant,” Crowley cut him off. “You gadded around with him and put the idea into his head.”

Aziraphale looked at him out of the corner of his eye, glanced down, then looked back up again at Crowley in quick succession. “I can hardly help what he chooses to use as subject matter,” he sniffed, but his pleased little wriggle at having been caught betrayed him.

 _“_ _Naughty_ angel,” Crowley tsked, waggling his finger, and Aziraphale furrowed his brow.

 _“_ You—you went in?  Wasn’t it...uncomfortable for you?”

 _“_ Eh, it wasn’t so bad,” shrugged Crowley, distinctly remembering the hot flare of pain that ate away at him like a flame at the wick of a candle.

 _“_ Did you see the—the other thing?  In the Last Judgment?”

 _“_ The other?” the demon wondered. “The other what?”

 _“_ Oh—nothing, really,” Aziraphale said quickly, and it seemed to Crowley that his embarrassment shifted into something resembling disappointment. “Just a little detail.”

 _“_ Yeah, well. You’ll forgive me if I missed it; there’re quite a few details. Michelangelo had a big canvas, after-all; he had to chuck in a great deal to fill it up.”

 _“_ Quite right,” Aziraphale said quietly, and Crowley _definitely_ detected disappointment in his voice.  He thought possibly he ought to say something, possibly he ought to _do_ something, but what could he— “I noticed that you are friends with Leonardo?”

 _“_ Oh, yeah. He thinks for himself—he’s surrounded by all this holy stuff, but he leans toward science. Plus he’s a _riot._ ”

 _“_ Ah?”

 _“_ He told me once he invited some friends into a room to allegedly show them an experiment, but what he _actually_ did was take the intestines of a sheep and inflated them so large with a blacksmith’s bellows that no one could leave.”

Aziraphale gave the demon an appropriate tut, and Crowley leaned nearer to him, splaying his fingers flat on the table.

 _“_ I hit on an idea he might like, though. He obtained this _enormous_ lizard—a live one—and I told him ‘you’re clever, aren’t you? You could make almost anything at all, if you put your mind to it’. He reckoned that he was, and that he could, so I told him ‘why not make wings for it? Why not give it horns? People’d _love_ that’. So he did!  Gave it the horns, stuck on a little beard, flayed out wings from the skin of other lizards; he even got them to _move_ as it walked.”

 _“_ You didn’t,” Aziraphale said, sounding appalled but looking delighted.

 _“_ _I_ only came up with the idea; he put it into action. He told people he kept a dragon as a pet, and nobody believed him.  He’d bring it out and get a scream every time,” Crowley said, and he smiled when Aziraphale laughed.

 _“_ That’s _terrible!_ ”

 _“_ You _love_ it,” Crowley argued, and Aziraphale held out his hand.

Crowley touched his cup to Aziraphale’s, and the angel looked at him out of the corner of his eye and smiled.

* * *

  _1_ _543 AD (September)_  

Crowley had not stepped foot in the chapel for decades. I mean, he wouldn’t, would he?  Chapels, churches, monasteries, etc., etc., etc.—they weren’t really _for_ him, a fact made painfully obvious whenever he entered one.

He had only gone in before to have a look at the ceiling. People oohed and ahhed over it, and Crowley entertained a healthy curiosity over art.  Or, rather, he enjoyed viewing the things that people created.  A notion came to them, an image, and they poured their very souls into it, spending days, months, _years_ crafting a thing only they understood before releasing it for others to consume.

Crowley wondered if there wasn’t a connection to be made, a parallel between that and what God did, but he preferred not to think about it.

The moment the demon’s boot fell upon the swirled marble mosaic floor, his knees buckled. It hurt just as much at the moment as it had when he first entered over thirty years ago. If a trip through a monastery felt like a hammer blow, strolling around the pope’s domain dropped an entire mountain directly on his head.

He kept close to the right wall, running his hand along the red painted drapery, eventually pressing his shoulder into it as he dragged himself toward the back wall.  Of course. The far end. Couldn’t be at the front, right there at the door, _nooo._

Crowley had slipped in unnoticed, choosing to view it at night same as he had done with the ceiling, free of crowds who might wonder over the man who looked to be five minutes away from just crawling along the ground. Left alone to view it in quiet contemplation rather than the midst of a mad, buzzing din of excited voices. _Left alone._

Staggering forward, he paused a few paces from the fresco behind the altar. The pain swelled near to agony, and he rested his cheek against the wall that supported him, shutting his eyes and letting the stillness wash over him.

He would do as he had done before, then.

Out came the wings, and he stretched them as though he rose from a deep sleep, one black feather dislodging and spiralling down, nearly lost against the dark backdrop of the tiled mosaic. As he tilted his head back and fluttered up into the air, Crowley almost wished someone might stop by and spot him. What would they say? _What would they think?_

The demon pored over the artwork, viewing it first from a distance as though whatever Aziraphale referenced would leap out at him, blatant against the sky-blue background. He skimmed nearer next, eyes scanning through the damned and the saved. The angel wouldn’t have meant that, would he?  What had he hoped Crowley had seen?

Whatever it was, Crowley couldn’t help but note the almost overwhelming nudity.  Bet all the stuffy cardinals loved naked men at every turn, nude humans and angels writhing and groaning against each other, twisting and sinuous, sweat sticking out on their muscled and bared bodies.  A collective of disrobed bodies, stretching up yard after yard—a monument to flesh.  It could certainly give one ideas, if one chose to view it at length.

Well.

Crowley wasn’t there for _that._

He grew tired.  The chapel drained him, and flying about looking for the equivalent of a needle in a haystack certainly didn’t help matters.

Ready to dip back to earth and haul himself out for one—several—stiff drinks, Crowley had nearly given up when something caught his eye. There. To the left.

An angel stretched out his arms, pointed down like an arrow toward a man grasping for him, the celestial being reaching just as desperately for the human as he reached for his saviour.

Crowley recognised the angel’s face.

_It was his own._

_“_ Well, that’s hardly accurate, is it?” Crowley said aloud, his voice cracking on the final words as he reached a shaking hand to touch the fresco.

Aziraphale convinced Michelangelo to paint him?  Had he pointed him out in a marketplace at some point?  Had the angel described him to the artist?  His eyes were brown, restored to something missing for so long that Crowley had nearly forgotten, and he brushed his free hand to his cheek.  How had he known?

Whispering into Michelangelo’s ear, Aziraphale influenced him to use Crowley as a model.  It didn’t matter that the demon was in the midst of a hundred or so faces; the angel could have done anything at all—could have done _nothing_ at all—and he chose to persuade the artist to place him in the fresco?

Crowley would be forever immortalised in something beautiful, as someone—as _something_ better than himself?

Heart aching, Crowley’s fingertips trembled against the paint.

 _“_ Oh, Aziraphale…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! I've decided to release this bad boy out. Not totally thrilled but...whatever. It'll have to do, I suppose? Here are some notes:
> 
> -This has nothing to do with anything, but did you know that eye-rolling has only recently become what we all know it to be? I just thought of it when looking over my work. It used to be a sign of romantic interest, or seduction--something along those lines. Romantic, etc. It wasn't until the 20th century--and mostly the *mid* 20th century--that it took on the form that's recognised today. Also studies say that women roll their eyes more than men do. Fun fact of the day, I suppose.  
> -I reference, of course, the Dancing Plague of 1518 in Salsbourg, Alsace. It mostly afflicted women, and it started with one woman dancing mysteriously. Others joined in, and it soon ballooned to hundreds. They danced nonstop, and there were even reports that people died from presumably heart attacks or exhaustion. Physicians said the problem was "hot blood", but, contrary to the usual treatment of bleeding, they really did suggest *more* dancing, which surprisingly made matters worse. Who would have thought! Concerned nobles built two halls, opened a market, erected a stage, and even hired musicians to play to encourage people to dance the problem out of their system. Historians today still have no idea what caused it; possible theories that have been floated have included an LSD-like fungus in the bread they ate, but it wouldn't affect them for so long nor would it explain why it happened in certain areas with outbreaks recurring. Another theory is that life was so hard (even in context of how terrible the MIddle Ages were) for these people specifically that they all shared in a mass public hysteria. Interesting regardless!  
> -Henry the VIII was obese (I assume we all knew that; he's the King I'm referencing in this fic), and a lot of the people in his inner circle padded up their clothing to make their figures look fatter, to both flatter him and keep from insulting him with their thinness.  
> -I'm going with Crowley not knowing about the love thing because he seemed surprised in the show, too. So THERE. It's not like he was an angel for long/knew a lot of people when he was.  
> -You got points in jousting if you: took the plumage off of an opponent's helmet, unseated a rider, struck them in the head or their chest, or exploded your lance. The whole unseating thing had started to fall by the wayside and probably stopped by this year, but hey! I'm doing it anyway. Henry the VIII was a fantastic jouster and was actually unseated himself in 1536; not only was he unseated, but his horse came down on top of him, rendering him unconscious for two hours and leading to fears he may die. Some historians note this to be the turning point for him becoming a tyrant; that and nearly getting killed by being struck in the face through an open helmet years earlier, yeesh. Years of jousting had taken a toll both on his mental and physical health, and he never truly recovered, quickly growing fat and temperamental, suffering from leg problems (second accident) and migraines (first accident) for the rest of his life.  
> -Sack was a popular alcoholic drink at the time (Shakespeare gives it a shout-out numerous times)! It's apparently like sherry and some use the term interchangeably, but it's not exactly it.  
> -Leonardo da Vinci did both of the things I mentioned, supposedly. He was a notorious prankster and lover of practical jokes.
> 
> There you go! I hope you liked it. Writing the other one as I type, haha. Catch you later!!


	10. 1665 AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley visits London.

_1665 AD_

 

It was bound to happen eventually.

Crowley imagined there must be some sort of invisible loop, tightening around both him and the angel incrementally so that meeting Aziraphale seemed almost to be pre-destined. So it ought to have come as no surprise when they bumped into one another in London—almost in the literal sense of the word.

He focused his gaze upon the ground, minimising the sight of horrors if not the sound or smell of them. He peered up for a moment and was glad that he did, stopping just short of running down the angel, who kept his head bowed and walked with quickened step directly toward him.

 _“_ Oh!” Aziraphale tottered backward, surprised. “My apologies, I—I didn’t see you there.”

Crowley said nothing, taking in Aziraphale’s clothing. His tunic and breeches were a simple sepia colour, and he had found a cloak in a muted blue leagues apart from the garish colour the demon watched pop up on the street in order to strain his eye.

The angel touched a hand to the brim of his floppy hat, repositioning the oversized curled feather. “I’m helping here,” he said defensively, yet tilted his head and squinted his eyes as he attempted to see through Crowley’s mask.

Now, technically, Crowley wasn’t what you would call a ‘plague doctor’. He wasn’t, in fact, a doctor at all. As he saw it, however, he could do a better job than those who ran around ‘treating people’, and so he donned the costume and allowed people to make their own assumptions.

 _“_ _Are_ you?” Crowley wondered.

Aziraphale brightened at the reply, and he leaned back with a smile. “Crowley! Is that you?”

 _“_ I think so,” Crowley replied, voice muffled from beneath the mask.

 _“_ Nice to see you—well, in a manner of speaking!” Aziraphale chirped, and then immediately pulled a face as though he had tasted something bitter. “What are you doing parading around like that?”

 _“_ Same could be said about you, angel,” Crowley lifted a portion of Aziraphale’s cloak with his cane and the angel promptly slapped the stick down without any heat.

 _“_ You know what I’m asking,” Aziraphale said, walking off without waiting to hear the demon’s reply.

He had the _audacity_ to glance back over his shoulder to see if Crowley meant to follow him and Crowley half-cursed the angel, half-cursed himself as he promptly re-wrote his itinerary, hurrying to catch up with Aziraphale.

 _“_ "There's something mysterious about the mask and the robes,” Crowley replied as he fell into step with the angel, walking as near to Aziraphale as he could without trodding all over him. “Could be anyone—anything—underneath.”

 _“_ Hm,” said the angel loquaciously.

 _“ ‘_ Hm’? And what’s that supposed to mean, exactly?”

 _“_ It means ‘hm’. It is an interjection one may use in conversation,” Aziraphale offered annoyingly, and when Crowley turned to give him a scowl, he realised it was lost on the angel. It _would_ have been lost on the angel, anyway, except Crowley didn’t miss the smug smile that surfaced briefly on his lips.

Oh, he _knew._

 _“_ Thank-you for that,” Crowley grumbled.

 _“_ It just isn’t much like you, is it?  You enjoy showing off your little...fashions,” Aziraphale raised both hands in a wave.

 _“_ Disregarding your painting me to be some posing—posing _poser,_ ” Crowley stumbled, Aziraphale’s smile making a return appearance and growing in size as he bumbled along, “I get plenty of attention dressed as I am. Not that I appreciate it. Or need it. Or even want it.”

 _“_ No, of course not,” Aziraphale cooed in feigned agreement. “So you are here to show off, then? Or not, as the case may be?”

 _“_ I’m here for the plague,” Crowley said, and when Aziraphale looked at him quickly, all good humour slipping from his face, the demon held up his hand. “Not the way you’re thinking. I’ve _nothing_ at all to do with it. Don’t you know me by now? I tempt people into small things, into performing acts they’ve already been leaning toward doing for ages.”

 _“_ Oh...yes, yes,” Aziraphale touched fingertips to his cheek with a frown. “I knew it before you said it, it’s only—well. You hear plague, you see a demon...”

 _“_ How kind,” Crowley replied, voice thin, and when Aziraphale placed his hand on the demon’s arm in silent apology, he relaxed.

They walked side-by-side together, distracted by the grim scenery of the once vibrant city.

 _“_ Bring out yer dead!” a man called from across the street as he and his companion lifted one of the bodies already lining the walkway in front of the homes, stacked atop each other like cords of wood.

 _“_ The smell really is unbearable,” Aziraphale held a handkerchief to his nose as though that would alleviate the stench of unwashed corpses, and Crowley thumbed at the end of his long beak.

 _“_ That’s where the mask comes in handy, angel. Got all sorts of things stuck in here at the end. Rose, mint, juniper berry, ambergris, cloves—can’t even remember it all.”

 _“_ And it helps?”

 _“_ It’s like stuffing a bunch of flowers up your nose. I suppose you pick your poison.”

 _“_ I suppose you do,” Aziraphale murmured, and when he crossed the street, Crowley trailed after him.

"Eerie seeing London this way,” he mused, and the angel sighed at his side.

 _“_ I know what you mean. No more vendors out and about.”

 _“_ No more begging,” Crowley chipped in.

“Nor cats and dogs,” Aziraphale said wistfully. “No little furry chaps rubbing about your legs as you’re stopping to take it all in.”

 _“_ No more street performers, either.”

 _“_ It’s just so...” Aziraphale paused, searching for the right word.

 _“_ Empty,” they said together, and the angel looked at Crowley and then looked away just as quickly, chewing at his bottom lip fretfully.

 _“_ So you’ve noticed it as well, then.”

 _“_ Oh, yeah, I may have picked up on that as I waded in between all the bodies propped here and there like planks of—oi! Where are you going?”

Aziraphale had broken away from Crowley, one hand on a doorknob that led into a house that appeared as though it remained standing only through sheer will power and what was no doubt more than a little spite. “Oh! Just—just popping in here for a moment.”

 _“_ It’s condemned,” Crowley stepped up to Aziraphale’s side, tapping his cane against the red cross that marked the door before underlining the words scrawled across it. “Lord have mercy upon us.”

“And the Lord shall,” Aziraphale replied primly, turning up his nose at Crowley as the demon rolled his eyes. “You may wait out here if you like; it’ll only be a minute.”

 _“_ You can’t go in there!” the appointed watchman cried, having viewed their debate from a slight distance, apparently hoping it would resolve itself without his needing to get involved. “Alderman’s orders—you’re not allowed.”

 _“_ I believe you’ll find that I am, in fact, _allowed._ Special dispensation,” Aziraphale said with a smile. “Straight from the top, as it were.”

 _“_ Special dispensation,” the watchman repeated somewhat blearily, as though he had wakened from a dream and couldn’t quite remember what it had been, and the angel slipped into the house unimpeded.

 _“_ Yeah. Uh, me too. I’m a doctor. Plague doctor,” Crowley added, stretching out his arms to really sell the point before hurrying to catch up with Aziraphale.

 _“_ No one’s allowed in,” a man cried, meeting them directly at the door nearly the instant that they entered, and Crowley glanced around the dim interior, touching a hand to his mask.

The scent of illness hung heavy in the air, and what presented itself even stronger to the demon was the overwhelming sensation of _sadness._ It weighed the fellow in front of him down, dragging his frame toward the ground, and he had the look of a person who had shed every tear in his possession and grasped at more.

 _“_ Oh! A—a plague doctor! Oh, thank _God,_ ” he cried, and Crowley flinched. “You’re here to save us!”

 _“_ No,” he said simply, holding up his walking stick to prevent the man from taking his hands in his desperate excitement. “I am here to observe.”

 _“_ So, ah,” Aziraphale rubbed his hands together and taking control of the conversation. “Where is the patient, then? Let’s see what we have.”

 _“_ The bubonic plague, angel. It’s what they _all_ have,” Crowley drawled in Aziraphale’s ear, and the angel batted him away peevishly.

Candles flickered in the next room that they entered, and the demon blinked against the dimness, the fire in the hearth on its last legs.

 _“_ We were told to keep it going the entire time, but the wood...it is hard to get supplies. We are not allowed to leave, and most people do not want to come near our home,” the man offered, and Crowley watched Aziraphale as he approached the woman in the bed, secreted beneath a mess of blankets.

 _“_ I understand,” Aziraphale clucked sympathetically, squinting in the poorly lit room, and Crowley strolled unattended to the fireplace, prodding his walking stick at the pathetic pile of logs that remained.

The flames crackled up bright and strong beneath his care, and when all eyes in the room turned to Crowley, he shrugged. “You just needed to move the wood 'round."

 _“_ Of...course...” the man frowned heavily, but Aziraphale smiled at Crowley just over his shoulder.

The demon looked away quickly, becoming thoroughly invested in the maintenance of the fire.

 _“_ There isn’t anything more to do but pray.”

 _“_ How’s that going, exactly?” Crowley wondered, careful not to look up. He didn’t need to; he knew _precisely_ the stare the angel levelled at him. It was one offered to him countless times over a multitude of centuries when he deliberately pushed Aziraphale’s buttons; he could see it perfectly in his mind’s eye.

 _“_ Ah! Now, I wouldn’t be so sure on that front,” Aziraphale said eagerly. “Medicine makes, er, advances, you know. Great strides and all that; I _believe_ I may be able to assist you.”

 _“_ I’ll give you anything you want—anything I own is yours—if you can only help. I’d be lost without her.”

Crowley glanced up as the man covered his face in a futile attempt to hide his sobs, and Aziraphale awkwardly patted him upon the shoulder before rolling his sleeves back to his elbow and thrusting his cloak out of the way in order to kneel by the bedside.

 _“_ So if I asked you for your house—you’d give it to me?” Crowley wondered, drawing nearer to the man. “Provided the woman’s saved, of course.”

The man blinked, startled by the question, and took an uneasy step away from Crowley, crowding closer to the angel, who frowned at the demon.  Was it the outfit? It must have been; something about not being able to see a person’s face—or even their eyes—seemed to put humans off more than just about anything else.

 _“_ No, he’d give _me_ his house, which is absurdity, because I neither want it nor did I ask for it,” Aziraphale answered instead. “Pretend he’s not even here; it’s what I do.”

 _“_ You don’t,” Crowley returned lazily, and nodded to the man. “Well?”

 _“_ I meant what I said,” he replied, voice rough. “If you want it, you can have it.”

 _“_ Crowley, leave him be,” Aziraphale said, hands brushing along the woman’s arm, which was blackened from the disease.

 _“_ Why would you do that? If she lived, you would have _nothing._ You’d be on the streets! You’d be _starving!_ ”

 _“_ If she lived, that would be all that mattered!” he said, tears standing out in his dark eyes, voice raising as he continued, throwing his arm out. “What would _any_ of this mean if I was left alone?”

 _“_ I think it’s better if you wait outside,” Aziraphale said, and when Crowley started to sidle to the door, the angel stopped him. “ _Not_ you. It will only be a moment; I’ll shout for you when I have finished.”

The man offered Crowley a long look and then bowed out of the room, acquiescing to Aziraphale’s wishes. The demon hardly saw the point in it; he paced just outside, swishing back and forth in front of the open doorway, his boots tapping loudly on the wood as he performed lap after lap.

 _“_ This isn’t like you,” Aziraphale lowered his voice to keep from being overheard.  He felt gently along the line of the woman’s jaw, her blue eyes blankly looking past him to focus on Crowley’s mask, and the demon fidgeted at the appraisal.

 _“_ Don’t know what you mean.”

 _“_ You are _antagonising_ him, when he’s already suffering. You were so _angry_ at me with Jehanne, and now you bully—”

 _“_ I’m not _bullying,_ ” Crowley spat the word out, the taste of it bitter on his tongue. “I was asking him a question. I’m free to do that. And demons bully, incidentally. Do a lot worse, actually.”

 _“_ That they do,” Aziraphale said coolly, and then glanced up out of the corner of his eye at Crowley when the demon stepped closer to him. “But you never have.”

Crowley rubbed at the back of his neck. “I—I do,” he replied half-heartedly, and Aziraphale furrowed his brow.

 _“_ You don’t want his house, and you hardly need it,” the angel murmured, fingertips brushing across the woman’s forehead, prompting her to shut her eyes with a sigh. “You aren’t doing it out of cruelty; no matter what you say to the contrary, I _know_ you, Crowley.  What is it you’re playing at?”

 _“_ Remember what you told me? Back at that tournament?”

 _“_ I said more than a few things; you’ll have to refresh my memory, I’m afraid.”

 _“_ You told me that you can feel love,” Crowley said, and Aziraphale stilled his motions, staring ahead.

 _“_ Ah. That.”

 _“_ Is—does he love her, then?” Crowley wondered, and Aziraphale smiled softly.

 _“_ I only wish that you could feel it, Crowley,” the angel said quietly, his hand resting over the woman’s. “It is _everywhere_ in this home; I have no doubt that he would offer us everything he owned to restore her to health.”

 _“_ Offer _us_ ? He told me _I_ could have the house.”

 _“_ He can tell you whatever he wishes, but seeing as _I_ am the one actively—oh, this truly is silly!” Aziraphale scowled up at Crowley. “Neither one of us is going to be seizing his property.”

 _“_ Think of it, angel.  Go ‘round London, curing people strategically, collecting homes and businesses—I’ve heard that the future lies in real estate.”

Aziraphale laughed. “Tempting as it does sound to become landlord to all of London, I believe I will decline. Oh!” The angel stood as the woman blinked, her gaze freshly focused in her pinched and pale face. “Good evening, my dear woman.  Feel better, do you?”

 _“_ I—I do,” she croaked, sitting up but meeting Aziraphale’s hand.

“Ah ah. It would be best to rest.  The swellings ought to diminish through the evening and be gone utterly by morning. Some nice comfort food should be a great boon to you, but—simply regain your strength. That’s the important bit.”

 _“_ I will live?” she whispered, and the angel nodded. “How can this be?”

 _“_ By the power of God,” Crowley said sarcastically, throwing in a theatrical wave of his hands.

 _“_ Yes, thank-you for that,” Aziraphale grumbled.

The angel prattled on to the woman about how _truly lucky_ she was, and how he had come at just the right time, really, it was almost _miraculous,_ one might say, but Crowley’s attention meandered elsewhere.

Another woman’s voice lifted in from the main area, and the demon slid from the room, curious. The man trod heavily down the steps from the loft with a bundle in his arms, carrying it as though he bore the weight of the world.

From the wrapped sheets nosed the sallow face of a child, lips slightly parted, dark eyelashes pressed together, and his father gently placed him on the table, stepping aside as an old woman bustled forward.

 _“_ Oh dear,” Aziraphale tsked, and Crowley jumped at the sound of his sudden voice, not realising the angel had joined him at some point. “I had hoped to be gone before...this.”

 _“_ You knew?” Crowley turned to Aziraphale, who shrugged.

 _“_ They directed me here to help the mother. Given that I heard no noise from a child, nor any mention of one, I...came to the conclusion on my own. We ought to go before we disturb them.”

 _“_ Hold on!” Crowley caught Aziraphale by the sleeve. “You’re going to just leave?”

 _“_ My orders—”

 _“ ‘_ _My orders’,_ ” Crowley mimicked in an unflattering fashion, and Aziraphale’s mouth formed a grim line at the sound of it, “Somehow I doubt you remind yourself of those before biting into a leg of lamb."

 _“_ I eat to—to fit in!”

 _“_ Oh, now _that_ is funny,” Crowley snorted mirthlessly.

 _“_ Crowley— _don’t._ ”

The angel caught him by the arm, but it was his tone that stopped the demon. He voiced his words as an order; he had never commanded Crowley to do anything before, and the pure surprise of it halted him in his tracks.

 _“_ You _cannot_ do what I think—what I _know_ you plan to do,” Aziraphale tightened his fingers against Crowley. “That child is dead.”

 _“_ Yes, I’m aware,” Crowley replied, but Aziraphale held him firmly in place.

 _“_ You _cannot_ go around bringing people back from the dead!” Aziraphale hissed at him, dropping his voice. “It isn’t a parlour trick. What—what I did in there with the mother required a very delicate touch. Why do you think I didn’t draw out all the bruising? Why do you think the buboes will linger a few hours? If I snapped my fingers and had her perfectly healthy, they’d haul me away as a witch, and I tell you—burning at the stake doesn’t look to be an altogether pleasant way to expire.”

Crowley yanked his arm free from Aziraphale, and the angel sighed.

 _“_ I know that you are cross with me, even if I can’t see your—”

“Are we done here?” Crowley cut him off, and the angel fumbled a bit, thrown by his curt response.

 _“_ I...suppose so, yes.”

Aziraphale, of course, made perfect sense. Crowley did not run round raising the dead as a rule. For a start, it brought precisely the attention the angel thought it best they avoid, ie, the pitchfork and torches kind. It also rang a little bell for Hell; demons weren’t _supposed_ to be restoring and reviving creatures; they were _meant_ to be degrading and destroying. Doing the opposite of what one is employed to do has never served as sound business practice.

Crowley considered the miracle Aziraphale performed to be hollow, however.  What purpose could it serve to save the mother and ignore the child?  Would she not always question why she survived when her son did not?

The demon crossed the room to open the front door, and the father looked at him.

 _“_ You have finished, then?”

 _“_ Yep. Everything’s great,” Crowley said, and he gestured toward the opening as the angel vacillated, rubbing his hands together anxiously. “C’mon, Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale chewed at his lip for a moment longer. “I—oh, _bugger_ it,” he declared, hastily pressing his sleeves back up to his elbows as he stalked toward the table. “Let me see your boy.”

 _“_ I’m here to identify the body,” the woman argued, lifting her white walking stick as proof. “You are not a Searcher!”

 _“_ No, I rather imagine I’m not. Why would you summon someone to take your boy while he still lives?” Aziraphale directed to the father, who covered his mouth with his hand.

 _“_ He passed shortly before you arrived. You know as well as I that it is the law to notify the city of any deaths.”

 _“_ I understand that—from time-to-time—some poor souls are buried whilst they are still living. They sleep so deeply and breathe in such a shallow fashion that they appear to be deceased. So it is here, with your lad.”

 _“_ No,” the man exhaled, a look of fervent hope crossing his face as he pushed past the woman to reach his child’s side.

The boy inhaled, chest rattling in the exertion, and both he and his father sobbed as they embraced, clinging to each other as though no one else existed outside their family.

Aziraphale turned to the old woman, waving his hands slowly in the air in a fashion he no doubt deemed as soothing. “You entered a plague home, and you deserve to leave with some some compensation,” he said, offering her a shiny silver coin that seemed to have been plucked out of nowhere.

She snatched it away greedily, making it disappear quicker even than he summoned it, and Aziraphale side-stepped around her, arriving at Crowley’s side and continuing on out the door without a word.

 _“_ Sirs—wait!” the father looked desperately toward Crowley, unwilling to loosen the grasp he had upon the child he considered lost only moments earlier. “Is there anything I can do? To repay what you have done for me today?”

 _“_ Praise Satan,” Crowley joked, regretting it instantly when Aziraphale gave him an almighty tug backward via his collar, causing him to let out a squawk that was neither cool nor dignified as he struggled to maintain his balance.

 _“_ No payment is required as we did nothing,” Aziraphale replied sweetly before closing the door and giving Crowley a withering look. “Was that at _all_ necessary?”

 _“_ Well— _no,_ but it was funny,” Crowley argued, and he fell into an easy step with the angel. “Admit it. You _wanted_ to laugh but felt you shouldn’t.”

 _“_ I will admit no such thing,” Aziraphale said placidly as they turned the corner.

 _“_ Should I...should I _thank_ you?” Crowley wondered. Offering gratitude toward someone was such a foreign concept to his lot; demons weren’t really well-versed in the pleases-and-thank-yous, and the only being that had ever warranted any such remark from him—in his opinion—currently strode right at his side.

 _“_ No. Better—better not,” Aziraphale murmured with a quick look around, as though he anticipated that the very walls and street had unpleasant eyes waiting to write terrible reports about his conduct. “I believed I ought to do it anyway, between the two of us. How would it have looked on your record?”

 _“_ Oh. Right. Terrible,” Crowley agreed, and they paused in order to allow a wagon to wheel along slowly in front of them, creaking beneath the weight of bodies heaped in like discarded refuse. An arm dangled here, a leg there—lives snuffed out far too early and destined to be thrown into a pit with hundreds of others.

Crowley glanced toward Aziraphale, ready to attempt another joke that had a high probability of landing poorly, but found the angel watching the cart’s progression, face twisted and bottom lip trembling.

 _“_...Angel?” he asked softly, and Aziraphale jumped as though Crowley had jabbed him instead, blinking rapidly and bringing his expression back to some semblance of neutrality.

 _“_ Did you say something? Sorry—my mind was—was leagues away,” Aziraphale fluttered a hand near to his temple, attempting a fragile smile.

 _“_ I wondered where you were staying,” Crowley lied as they entered the street, the angel plunging forward without another glance while the demon looked for the both of them, catching Aziraphale’s sleeve to keep him from being ploughed over by a carriage.

 _“_ Ah. The inn with the green roof—has a little lion on the sign outside? I don’t need to ask where you are—I know it’s the same,” Aziraphale replied after a moment’s pause to let the driver through unimpeded.

 _“_ And you didn’t say anything?” Crowley felt hurt at the idea that, had he not bumped into Aziraphale, the angel would have trundled happily around the city without the inclination to reach out to him.

Aziraphale snorted. “What?  How?  Go round to each door and say ‘so sorry to bother you, but I’m looking for a certain chap.  Do you know him?  Is he in there with you?  Can I have a look-see?  I’ll be quick, promise,’?  I imagined we would find one another soon enough; we always tend to do so."

 _“_ Do you...want to come back to my room for a drink, then?  Catch up?” Crowley offered tentatively.

 _“_ _Oh yes,_ ” the angel replied instantly, as though he had been waiting for the demon to ask that very question since first encountering him.

* * *

 

 _“_ Finally figured out what it is that bothers me. ‘Bout all this, I mean,” Aziraphale said to the window, his forehead and most of his face pressed into the glass as he looked out uselessly over the darkened courtyard.

 _“_ Oh yeah?” Crowley prompted, sprawling on the bed with all limbs thrust out like a starfish as the entire room spun pleasantly around him.

 _“’_ s so _quiet._ Do you hear it? Out there?”

Crowley paused to listen. “Don’t hear anything.”

 _“_ Ex-act-ly,” Aziraphale tapped the pane with each syllable. “Just the ringing of bells. The never-ending bells. Bellsss...”

 _“_ D’you have the bottle?”

Aziraphale peeled away from the window and brushed himself down before shaking his head. “No. You do.”

Crowley looked around and spotted that it had been placed at some point on the floor _next_ to the bed—which really did him no favours—and he rolled over, stretching lazily out to pluck it up again. He leaned farther still—farther _still—_ and fell off the bed.

 _“_ Whoops! There I go.”

The wine cascaded along the wooden floor, running in the grooves of the boards like spilt blood, and Crowley righted the container, waving his hand to replenish the supply.  His effort proved to be overeager, however, and he placed his lips to the mouth of the bottle to catch the excess that spurted up like a delicious fountain.

When Aziraphale returned to the bed, Crowley offered the angel the bottle as he joined him, sitting down heavily. “You never said what you’re here to do,” he said, his mouth against the glass as the demon shrugged breezily.

 _“’_ m on holiday. Thought—‘hey! Plague sounds nice!’—then I packed my bags an’ here I am,” he played for a joke, but Aziraphale didn’t laugh, drinking grimly instead as Crowley nudged him lightly in the ribs. “Remember the last time we met?”

 _“_ You won the coin toss; I was beginning to feel sorry for you,” Aziraphale smiled softly and then frowned, abruptly changing tack. “D’you...d’you ever think something’s guiding your path? From a distance?”

Crowley blinked slowly at the angel, processing the question to make certain it was as dumb as it sounded. “What? Like God? Is that what you’re asking?  Are you asking me if I believe in _God?_ ”

 _“_ _No,_ ” Aziraphale put his free hand to his mouth, tittering, and then Crowley joined in until they were both laughing at a joke that, on the face of it, wasn’t very funny at all.  “Could you imagine, though?  If there wasn’t actually anyone at the top, and we’d been tricked this whole time?  Smoke and mirrors.  Like magic.  I’ve seen some, you know.”

 _“_ You’ve seen some mirrors?” Crowley furrowed his brow, pondered the importance of the revelation, and Aziraphale waved the bottle at the demon, nearly splashing him with some of the wine.

“No, no, no. _Magic._ Want me to show you a trick?”

 _“_ Yeah, all right,” Crowley tilted away from him, back into the headboard.

 _“_ Have you got a hat?”

“You’ve got a hat,” Crowley tipped his chin toward the angel.

 _“_ Oh. Right,” Aziraphale reached up to touch it upon his head. “Have you got a rabbit?”

 _“_ Fresh out of those, I’m afraid.”

 _“_ Ah, well. It’s important to have the rabbit.  Will you take a rain check?”

 _“_ Suppose I’ll have to, won’t I?  What’d you mean, though—‘bout guided paths, and all that?” Crowley waved his hand nonchalantly while inside he felt rather like a tightened coil as he forced himself to focus.

Aziraphale tipped the bottle here and there, staring down at it as he spoke. “Sometimes I think, ‘ah, I haven’t seen that wily serpent in awhile,’ and then you seem to spring up, out of nowhere. Or—or I come to a town and I find you in the tavern, as though you’ve been waiting for me all along, even—even if it’s not London. Even if it’s a small town with hardly anybody in it—there you are. Or there _I_ am, watching you stroll up.”

 _“_ You think about me?” Crowley asked quietly, and the angel went brick red, handing over the bottle as he wriggled and sat up straighter.

 _“_ I—from time-to-time, when I’ve done _good,_ ” he said, and then paused. “Have you ever thought of me?”

Crowley choked, sputtering on the wine, and Aziraphale waited patiently for his answer, tilting his head as the demon coughed. _Had he ever thought of Aziraphale?_ Since he had spoken to him in the Garden over fifty-six hundred years ago, nothing crossed his mind with such frequency as the angel did.  What was he doing?  Where was he?  Was he—was he safe?

 _“_ It—once or twice. Possibly,” Crowley sniffed, and he took a greater drink from the bottle.

 _“_ I’ve another question for you, then,” Aziraphale murmured, pressing his words all together as Crowley raised an eyebrow and relinquished control of the alcohol.

 _“_ Right.  What is it?”

 _“_ What do you think about this?” Aziraphale asked, making no further comment or movement.

Crowley glanced at the angel over his sunglasses, trying to determine if he had missed something. No—he had paid him rigorous attention since—well. He always paid rigorous attention to Aziraphale.  “Of...what, exactly?”

 _“_ That,” Aziraphale amended, tipping his head back toward the window, and Crowley thought about it for a moment, ready to state his opinion that it could be bigger, when the angel continued. “The plague.”

 _“_ Oh,” Crowley said, scrapping his nascent lecture on the importance of large windows re: sunlight.  “Rough stuff.”

 _“_ All those people dead, Crowley.”

 _“_ Was worse back—when was it?  Thirteenth century?  No, no—it was fourteenth.  Must’ve been.  Right after the famine.  As if they hadn’t suffered enough.”

 _“_ You brought me almonds,” Aziraphale said more to himself than anything, voice soft, eyes softer still. “You knew when to appear.  You know just when I need cheering up.”

When Crowley tended to think back on the incident, he always lingered on Aziraphale’s close proximity, recalling how he had pressed his fingers against the cloth of the bag to feel the angel’s hand beneath it. He did not dwell on Aziraphale’s dismay over the famine—he himself did not like to relive the thought of the pain the people suffered for years on end.

But he _had_ been dismayed, and the weight of Aziraphale’s casual admission finally struck him. Did the sight of all the suffering caused by the plague distress him?  He acted precisely the same as he always did—prickly politeness on the outside, resigned fondness on the inside—but then Crowley had seen the mask slip earlier as the cart wheeled past them.

 _“_ Angel...” Crowley began, stretching out his foot to nudge against his leg. Aziraphale turned his face toward the fire, and Crowley pushed away from the headboard when he noticed the twitch of the angel’s shoulders. “Aziraphale?”

He scrunched his face up and screwed his eyes tightly shut, tears sliding quickly down his cheeks as he wept silently, and Crowley would not have noticed had his body not quivered and given him away.

Crowley froze, conflicted as to what to do. Did he keep talking to cover the silence? Did he pat him, or would it come off as insincere? Demons didn’t pat and coo and dry away tears—they _caused_ them. He had better do _something,_ anyway; it would all go a bit awkward in a few seconds otherwise.

He eyed the bottle in his indecision, reaching the conclusion it would be best to wrest it from the angel—at least for the time being—and so Crowley stretched forward to take it from him.

Aziraphale misinterpreted the movement—believed the demon to be attempting an embrace—and—and folded _into_ it?

If Crowley froze earlier, he became an utter glacier in that moment, arms rigid, eyes unblinking and as wide as he could get them, heart thrumming in his throat and threatening to make an escape at the next possible opportunity.

Crowley didn’t hug people—and people didn’t hug Crowley. Muss his clothing? _Cling_ to him?  Where did he put his hands?  How long was acceptable, and how long turned into something quite odd?  It was much easier to avoid the entire thing altogether.

But this wasn’t _people—_ this was _Aziraphale._ A rather drunk—far drunker than he was, the demon realised—Aziraphale now making a bit of noise as he buried his face in Crowley’s chest, messily muttering something indecipherable.

He clung to Crowley, his fingers digging into his back as though he might slip away otherwise, and Crowley gingerly, hesitantly lowered his arms and held him in return.

Over five and a half millennia to get to this point. He wished it could have been brought about without the intervention of copious amounts of alcohol, but the demon had _long_  ago chosen to take what he could get.

 _“_ It’s never been like this,” Aziraphale muttered, astonishing Crowley.

 _“_ Still on about the plague? I didn’t expect it from you. You didn’t so much as bat an eye with the flood—have you forgotten that?”

 _“_ I haven’t _forgotten_ it,” Aziraphale grumbled into the fabric of Crowley’s robe, reluctant to show his face once tucked away. “There weren’t as many people then as there are now. More die in a week now than lived then!  I didn’t...I just didn’t think this would happen again.”

 _“_ Well,” Crowley began, marvelling at how warm Aziraphale was in his arms, wishing he could somehow hold him closer still. “It didn’t, did it? Technically, a plague’s not the same as a flood.”

Aziraphale broke from him, drawing his left fist across his face, and Crowley felt suddenly lonely even with the angel sat right next to him. “That’s what they’d say to me, too. If anyone ever answered me.”

Crowley attempted to snag the bottle from Aziraphale a second time and succeeded, slipping it out of his hand without resistance before placing it on the nearby table. “Might’ve had enough. Possibly.”

Aziraphale stared blearily at the bottle and then at Crowley’s chest, looking through him and into the distance before re-focusing his gaze with a sharp horror, covering his mouth. “Did—you only wanted that back, didn’t you? And I— _oh no_ ,” he groaned, sinking his face slowly into his hands.

 _“_ No, no, no!” Crowley said hastily, waving his hands unsteadily to add further weight to his declaration. “Hugging? _Big_ fan of it, myself. Love to—have one a day. Or more. Keeps the doctor away, or so I’ve heard.”

 _“_ I believe that’s an apple, Crowley,” Aziraphale said, but when he looked up, Crowley noted his fleeting smile. “Do you...have a handkerchief, by chance?”

 _“_ Er...” Crowley patted around himself, quite certain he did not, and then paused. “No, but I may have something else.”

The demon tugged his right sleeve up, carefully undoing the knot of fabric twined around his upper arm and then dangled it in front of the angel, bouncing it in his vision when he did not immediately accept it.

 _“_ Go on; it’s clean. Cleanest bit of spare cloth you’ll find ‘round here, anyway.”

Aziraphale held it carefully, like an ancient tome with too-brittle pages, his voice hushed. “This—this is the scarf that I bought you.  You kept it?  After all these years?”

Crowley scratched at his neck, looking away. “Yeah, well...’s good in the cold. Can’t stand the cold,” he said, fidgeting and thoroughly abashed. “Are you gonna use it or _what?”_

The angel stared at it a little longer, opening his mouth, and then he shut it without a sound, giving a tiny shake of his head before touching the somewhat faded, somewhat frayed cloth gently to his cheek. “You need a new one,” Aziraphale said, closing his eyes.

 _“_ Don’t want a new one,” he replied automatically, picking up a metaphorical shovel to dig a deeper hole of Embarrassment for himself, and Aziraphale lowered the scarf, not immediately relinquishing it back unto Crowley.

As he spoke, he stared straight ahead. “You need not worry; I would pick it out,” the angel said slyly, glancing at Crowley from the corner of his eyes.

 _“_ Only if I’m there the second go ‘round.”

 _“_ Then it wouldn’t be a _surprise,_ ” Aziraphale pursed his lips in disapproval.

“No, it wouldn’t be; that’s the _point,_ angel. We avoid another monstrosity!” Crowley tried at nonchalance as he plucked the scarf from Aziraphale’s fingers, ducking back when the angel tried to retrieve it again with a swift swing of his arm.

 _“_ Oh, really! It isn’t as though I meant to hurl it into the fire,” Aziraphale clucked, expression switching at once from amusement to solemnity, a bit of his inebriation falling away like shedding a layer of clothing as he sat up straight once more, resting his hands in his lap but bouncing his leg anxiously. “I’d—I’d like to ask you about something else, Crowley. It’s about...earlier.”

 _“_ Oh?” Crowley tilted his head and wondered why he had the vague notion that he stepped nearer toward a trap.

 _“_ Why did you ask about love in that home?”

_Ah. There it was._

_“_ I was curious. In an academic sense,” Crowley replied, and recognition of words uttered long ago crossed Aziraphale’s face.

 _“_ An academic sense,” the angel repeated, and then he smoothed down the blanket on the bed, resting his left hand only a hair’s breadth from Crowley’s. “This may be...silly, but…”

 _“_ I wouldn’t worry too much; most things are,” Crowley said, hoping he had come off more casual than he sounded.

Aziraphale’s lips twitched into a ghost of a smile that faded just as quickly as it surfaced. “I was told by the—the other _angels,_ ” he said, dropping his voice into a murmur, his right hand clenching against his breeches, “that your lot—that is to say, demons—don’t feel love. But. I find myself wondering—can you?”

Crowley spluttered helplessly.

 _“_ I tend to—tend to recognise flashes now and again, no matter where it is that I go, but I always seem to feel it more strongly whenever you are with me,” Aziraphale frowned and then looked up through his eyelashes at Crowley. “Almost as though you—you magnify it, but how could that be?”

 _“_ Maybe it...” Crowley faltered weakly, wondering if he could effect an escape through the window. “It might be like an echo?”

Aziraphale furrowed his brow all the more. “An echo?”

 _“_ Yeah. You know how if you stand on the edge of a—a great big canyon, and give a ‘woohoo’?  The bigger the canyon, the bigger the ‘woohoo’?  Same with love, I imagine,” Crowley finished, the voice inside himself screaming louder and louder as his explanation careened on without him, concluding in a nonsensical mess.

 _“_ They told me the truth, then?”

_What would any of this mean if I was left alone?_

When the man had fairly snapped at Crowley, his words struck the demon with the same impact as a blow.  Wallowing after the Jehanne incident, he asked himself the same question time and again.  What would anything mean if he couldn’t see Aziraphale anymore?

Then his thoughts turned to illness.  The plague couldn’t touch Aziraphale, but he could be discorporated.  Worse still—he could cease to be entirely, burnt up in the flames of Hellfire.  What would Crowley do?

_What would Crowley do if they took Aziraphale from him?_

Crowley had a choice to make at that juncture, and neither option appealed to him. He could tell a lie. Lying was good; lying was _safe._ But—he had come to hate doing it to the angel; Aziraphale _trusted_ him.  He had never admitted it, and would probably deny it if the demon pressed him on it, but he did.  Possibly more than he trusted his own kind—no, certainly so, if he ignored what they told him in order to ask Crowley personally.

His second option, then: tell the truth.  That seemed even worse; Crowley had carefully built out their little—whatever _this_ was—over the span of millennia. Small steps taken and cautious words spoken, losing ground whenever he pressed his luck—whenever he grew too greedy.  How on earth would Aziraphale react if he told him he felt love?  Would he ask how—would he ask _who?_

Or would he know automatically?  It wasn’t _so_ long ago that he fled when Crowley hissed over the prospect of bread and stew with him; he couldn’t imagine what Aziraphale would do if he shouted out that he not only understood the concept of love but felt it specifically in regards to a certain angel and had for _thousands_ of years.

 _“_ Crowley…?”

 _“_ Y-yep. Big—big bad demon—that’s me, I’m afraid. Not made for any of that soft stuff,” he answered.

 _“_ Ah,” Aziraphale said simply, and Crowley wondered how such a small word could make him feel _so_ bad as the angel pulled his hand from the bed to rest in his lap. “I had thought...”

 _“_ You had thought what…?” Crowley coaxed, feeling distinctly as though he knelt at a fire and tried everything he could think of to prevent the flames from extinguishing.

Aziraphale smiled softly. “Something silly,” he whispered, blinking quickly and looking toward the hearth.

 _“_ Angel, I—” Crowley hesitated whenever Aziraphale returned his gaze.  He didn’t know what to say; he didn’t feel there was anything he _could_ say, and his silence damned him.

 _“_ Erm. The wine was quite good; thank-you for it.”

 _“_ Wait—wait! You aren’t going, are you?” Crowley straightened, and when Aziraphale stood, he slipped shamelessly into wheedling. “It—you—don’t go! Stay!”

 _“_ I don’t think that would be wise,” Aziraphale said quietly, his smile re-emerging but falling short of his eyes.  "Demon--angel."

 _“_ Angel— _Aziraphale,_ ” he said, an unspoken plea to stop, and Aziraphale heard it, pausing with his hand at the door but choosing to linger, his back toward the demon. “Could—stay here. Stay—don’t go.”

 _“_ I enjoyed our talk and it was—it was nice to see you again, Crowley, after all this time,” Aziraphale said gently, and he slipped out of the room.

Crowley snatched off his sunglasses, slamming them down onto the table before taking a deep swig from the bottle of wine.  Flopping back onto the bed, he hugged the feather pillow to his chest, pushing his face into it.

 _Don’t go,_ he said.  
  
_Don’t leave me,_ he meant instead, and he wished he could have convinced the angel to stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! Notes:
> 
> -Those were all things put into plague doctor's masks. Other items included: camphor, myrrh, laudanum, and storax. They thought the plague was caused by "miasma" (or bad air) and that by breathing in through the combination of spices, herbs, medicines, and straw, the doctors would be protected from contracting the plague.  
> -Bodies really were stacked against walls and just plunked down in front of houses. Originally they collected them during the day, then the city believed people would panic seeing the amount of death and moved collection to the night. More people started dying, however, and when the drivers couldn't keep up, they began to collect night and day. I'm aware "bring out yer dead!" probably conjures up Eric Idle in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but they did call it out. (Also go check out the plague song from Horrible Histories. I love those guys!)  
> -Orders were given to stop all street performances and begging while the plague took place. Taverns were allowed to stay open, but they could not admit people after nine in the evening. Not certain how that helped, but it was difficult to enforce them to follow the rule anyway. The city also culled cats and dogs, believing that they were the root cause of the plague, or a big part of it. Estimates put the animals killed at about 40,000 dogs and 20,000 cats, which ended up ironically having a disastrous effect on the city; with no cats and dogs to keep their population in check, the rat population (noticeably *not* culled) exploded, thus helping to spread the disease via the flea bites.  
> -Doors were apparently marked in such a way, and two men were assigned to guard plague houses to make certain nobody left them; one at day, and one at night.  
> -Smoke and heat were thought to help prevent the plague, and bonfires were built outside while fires burnt inside all day and night.  
> -Searchers were generally destitute (so older women mostly) who identified what a person had died from and reported it officially. Dying of the plague brought embarrassment and quarantine to surviving members and so searchers were often bribed to lie about what the victim died from, or they weren't trained well enough to accurately assess it. They carried white sticks to denote their occupation, lived outside the general populace, and kept indoors when not doing their work. Many died from the plague.  
> -Church bells rung to signify a death.  
> -Smoke and mirrors is a super recent phrase from the 20th century, and mirrors used to be referred to as "looking glasses", but the book delights in utilising anachronisms, so I will, too. Same with apple a day.  
> -The rabbit in a hat trick wasn't first noted as being used until the early 19th century, but consider this: Aziraphale actually came up with it on his own but it took him so long to actually do it right that someone else got to it first.
> 
> This one took ages. Sorry. I'm feeling kind of low, so if you don't like this one, don't leave a negative comment if you can at all avoid it. If you must, then you must, I suppose. As to why it took so long, I've got a slew of excuses, so choose whichever one you like best. Negative: Felt really sad. My internet's been out on and off all day every day for the past five days. Positive: Michael Sheen replied to me twice on Twitter. A shame my concentration was collateral damage, haha!!
> 
> I don't know about the next part(s)? because some people have voiced they don't like seeing parts from the show, but some parts from the show seem rather necessary. I may re-configure it, where the framework's there but it turns out differently, like how I did the knight scene. All my notes got deleted, so I have to try to remember what I planned (and I can't! Whoo!) So it may be a few days. Well. Yeah, it'll be a few days.
> 
> Hope you liked this one. I'll see you later!!


	11. 1718 AD & 1770 AD & 1793 AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley goes for a sail, sees some soldiers, and visits a friend in jail.

_1718 AD (May)_

Crowley was still not particularly fond of boats. Or ships. Boats _and_ ships. The longer the journey, the worse it was, and yet he found reason to board as a stowaway. _Was_ he a stowaway, though, if he wasn’t a person? Were rats stowaways? No, that didn’t seem right.

He tucked himself into shadowy corners and lurked in crevices, easily avoiding the crew’s line of sight until he grew altogether weary of staying a snake, choosing to make a sudden appearance that certainly nabbed everyone’s attention as he strode out onto the deck and called a halloa! to the working sailors.

Out came the shouts of ‘stowaway’, and Crowley rued he couldn’t quite argue his case without sounding as though the voyage had robbed him of a handful of his marbles. He anticipated that he may be thrown overboard—which would be even less pleasant than pitching here and there aboard the ship—but the captain stepped in, apparently amused by the demon’s defiant nature.

He _ought_ to have presented himself sooner; pirates played _so easily_ into his wheel-house. Crowley hardly had to make any effort at all to tempt each soul aboard into a dozen different vices before tea-time, and the advice he offered them during times of leisure only added to their prosperous fortune.

The captain—Teach—enjoyed his good counsel, elevating him in the ranks, and Crowley soon had a cabin of his own, where he spent most of his free time dozing in his hammock, wishing he had firm ground beneath his boots.

The liquor never seemed to end at least, and Crowley thanked—thanked _whoever_ —for it, able to reach his hand out and rest it on an unmarked jug of bumbo whenever he pleased. And he pleased _often._ It was that or stare out upon the sea that stretched on without limit and wonder what the angel did and where he was.

Stare out upon the sea and wonder if the angel missed Crowley as much as Crowley missed him.

Crowley had fetched breakfast for him the morning that followed their talk during the plague, turning over explanation after explanation to offer to Aziraphale as defence for what he had said to him, but he had been unable to _locate_ the angel.

He had taken flight at some point while Crowley slept, and the demon cursed himself for it, wallowing a little in self-pity before cheering himself with what Aziraphale had said earlier that evening. Crowley _did_ tend to find the angel when he needed to do so; it would happen again.

Only it _hadn’t._ It was as though someone had taken a candle and blown out the flame—decade after decade slipped away, and even when he allowed himself to slip into desperation and ask people if they had seen anyone who matched the description he provided, they offered him nothing in return.  Places familiar to the both of them—Rome, London—held no traces of the angel, and Crowley loathed the loneliness that began to encroach upon him.

Wandering streets he had walked with the angel and sitting in taverns in seats he had occupied before with Aziraphale across from him, laughing at something he said, turned maddening, and one day he realised he couldn’t take it any longer. Didn’t _want_ to take it any longer.

And so he slithered aboard the first ship that caught his attention.

Crowley covered his face with both his hands, slipping his fingers beneath his sunglasses to press against his eyes as he grit his teeth.

The less he wished to think about the angel, the more thoughts of Aziraphale haunted him.

 _“_ You all right?” a lad named Greensail asked him, looking out upon the water.  Crowley liked that.  Greensail.  He was exactly where he ought to be, bearing such a name.  Like stepping into a shop for a loaf of bread and the man selling it to you was called Baker.

 _“_ Just a bit of seasickness,” he said, and the man stared blankly at him. “It was a—nevermind.”

 _“_ They’re bringing the people on now—from that ship.”

Crowley scoffed, rolled his eyes, and turned his back on the ocean, leaning into the wood and tipping his head back toward the bright blue of the sky, an unwavering expanse left untouched by any clouds.  It was this type of day that called to the demon, made him wish to curl up beneath the sun and doze drowsily as the hours slipped away unnoticed.

 _“_ They’re a bunch of fools,” he offered when he realised Greensail expected him to say something.  “If we’re sat here, nabbing each boat that tries to pass through, what would make them think they could sneak by?  Ninth time’s the charm?”

 _“_ Aye, but you know how it is—rich bastards think they’re safe, think it’ll never happen to _them._ Makes it easy for us, anyhow.”

Crowley closed his eyes.  Such a thought was hardly relegated only to the wealthy; it seemed an entirely human belief.  Bad things happened to ot _her_ people.  If they prayed about it, it would—

The demon stretched to his full height and then flopped back down again, discontent.  Bloody _angel,_ dragging all Crowley’s thoughts back to him relentlessly.

 _“_ C’mon.  Give over all yer rings, yer watches, anything of the sort.  If you’ve got any nice jackets and such—hand ‘em up,” called one of the crew from nearby—Gibbens, Crowley believed.

 _“_ They’re _really_ not pleased,” Greensail sniggered as a third man joined their duo, plucking out a knife from his belt and using it to scrape at the dirt from beneath his fingernails leisurely. “Lookit their faces, all pinched and pale, and we haven’t even given them anything to be scared of.  Yet.”

Crowley made a noise in his throat that could be taken however the men wished, wondering how long he would travel aboard the ship, nestled amongst the crew.  With Teach?  The demon felt that he soared too close to the sun and would have his wings clipped soon; men who rose to the top of a pack soon found themselves tumbling down, and piracy hardly constituted a peaceful career opportunity.

Still.

Travelling with them provided him the ability to gesture vaguely around himself if pressed by Hell, stating he had induced them to do this raid or that attack while expending relatively no energy at all.

He could live _years_ on the ocean, if he wished it.

But what did he wish?

Crowley _knew_ what he wished, what he thought about in the hours between the waning of night and the beginning of morning, when the others slept, and he shut his eyes.

He wished for a bright smile, quick to rise and loath to leave. He wished for soft eyes looking over a glass of wine at him. He wished for words of chastisement slipped from lips that struggled to keep firm and unamused.  He wished for the light laugh that sent his insides wobbling, urging him to say and do something else—anything else—to hear it again, and again, and _again._

 _“_ Gimme your jacket!” Gibbens ordered from nearby.

He wished for—

 _“_ Oh, but I am _quite_ fond of it. Would you, er, take payment instead? I believe I could rummage up a few coins—how does that sound, hmm?”

Crowley’s eyes flew open, and he slipped against the wood, his carefully produced lean nearly costing him his balance as he snapped upright.

Where— _there._

 _“_ Shut it, molly! I’ll take the coins _and_ the coat,” Gibbens said gruffly.

Aziraphale smiled nervously, fidgeting and fiddling with the front of his jacket. He brushed his hand hesitantly along the buttons, and Crowley tilted his head, watching. The demon was _quite_ capable of self-control, thank-you very much; for example—he stayed put, viewing the scene in a detached fashion, as though he happened to be one part of an audience that observed an altogether unpleasant play.  Once Gibbens relieved Aziraphale of his possessions, Crowley could stroll over and strike up a chat, comforting the angel on the loss of his expensive clothing.

 _“_ What else’ve you got?” Gibbens wondered, following it up with a curse as he spat onto the deck, and Aziraphale frowned, puzzled.

 _“_ I—I beg your pardon?” he asked, and the sailor tipped his chin toward the angel’s hand.

 _“_ That there—the ring on your finger. Hand it over.”

Aziraphale took a step backward, covering the ring with his other hand. “Demanding my jacket was bad enough, but I _really_ must—must put my foot down. I’m afraid I have to decline your request.”

The men near to Gibbens had ceased their own looting efforts, intrigued by the defiant response emanating from the meekest looking man in a group of individuals who appeared as though they had never performed a task of labour a single day of their collective lives.

Gibbens, no doubt feeling the eyes of many upon him, promptly lost the handle on his temper and grabbed a fistful of Aziraphale’s coveted jacket with his left hand while swinging a flintlock pistol in his right, shoving it into the angel’s cheek. “I wasn’t askin’,” he said, voice low and calm as Aziraphale winced at the blunt threat.

The demon immediately threw out his planned Cool and Collected Appearance, taking three long strides across the deck in order to jab his own pistol into the base of Gibbens’ skull, hoping he applied as much—no, _more—_ pressure than did the seaman. “Pull that trigger, and it’ll be the lassst thing you do,” Crowley snarled, forgetting himself for a moment as his tongue felt unwieldy in his mouth, finding it suddenly impossible to speak without a sibilant edge lining his syllables.

Aziraphale’s eyes widened, and even with a gun pushed into his face his whole expression lifted when he realised Crowley was there, his features itching to crease into a smile.  Just as quickly, however, the angel wiped it away, replacing it all with a look of distance, of practised and studied neutrality. “Ah. Crowley.”

 _“_ Is that it, then?” Crowley cried, aggravated that his grand gesture had merited the verbal equivalent of a nod to an acquaintance you passed by on the street. And not even a _good_ acquaintance; an acquaintance you’d met a few times, here and there, and you couldn’t quite remember his name but oh!  There he is, a few steps away, better acknowledge him acquaintance.  “Not even a thank-you?”

 _“_ Thank-you for not shooting.  It would have been dreadfully inconvenient for me, you see,” Aziraphale directed politely at Gibbens, as though he had chosen not to do so of his own volition and not, perhaps, because Crowley had wedged a weapon against his skull and continued to do so should he change his mind on the whole subject.

 _“_ Not _him!_   Me! _M_ _e!_ ” Crowley said, and Aziraphale looked at him with an air of innocence, the only thing giving him away being the slightest twitch of his eyebrows, daring the demon to call him out on his actions.

 _“_ What _is_ all this?” a booming voice called out, and Teach sauntered toward them, pressing his wide-brimmed hat farther back upon his wild and shaggy black hair as the men went rigid.  Gibbens, however, held his position.

Crowley did too, for that matter.

 _“_ I do not like fighting amongst my men,” Teach said as he surveyed the scene in front of him, and then frowned. “But—what is this?”

 _“_ Crowley threatened to kill me,” Gibbens said.  “And it’s because of _him._ ”

The pirate dug his pistol deeper into Aziraphale’s flesh, and when the angel screwed his eyes shut, the anger that had flickered like a flame within Crowley from the first instant mounted higher.  The damned fool could easily pull the trigger by accident—and what would Crowley do then?

 _“_ I warned you!”

Teach raised his hand. “No one’ll shoot anyone else lest I’ve said to do so. Lower your weapons—the both of you.”

Reluctantly, Crowley obeyed, and Gibbens followed suit a fraction of a second later, dropping his hold on Aziraphale in the same moment.  The angel brushed the sleeves of his tan jacket, hands lingering next upon his similarly coloured waistcoat, and the demon wondered if Aziraphale avoided his eyes as he turned his ring anxiously upon his finger.

 _“_ I asked for his valuables—that’s it—and he wouldn’t do it,” Gibbens grumbled bitterly, and Teach gave the angel a thoughtful glance before running a hand through the unkempt mass of curls that constituted his well-known beard.

 _“_ Take the men below decks, Gibbens.  Go with him—Husk, Morton, Odell.”

Gibbens seized Aziraphale’s arm, yanking him roughly forward, and Crowley grabbed the pirate’s own arm automatically, digging his fingers in as he stared him down.

 _“_ Remove your hand, or I’ll do it for you!” Gibbens spat, and Crowley laughed.

 _“_ Try me!”

 _“_ Take the men, Gibbens,” Teach repeated lazily, before amending his order. “Leave that one, though.”

Gibbens snaked away from Crowley, giving him a venomous look before clapping his hands together. “Oi!  The lot of you!  Let’s get movin’!”

 _“_ Go about your business, now,” Teach said to the remainder of his crew, gazing at Aziraphale for a moment before turning his attention to Crowley.  “Why don’t the pair of you join me for a more intimate conversation?”

 _“_ Sounds good to me,” Crowley replied nonchalantly, pressing his sunglasses back up his nose and staring unabashedly at the angel.

Aziraphale looked to him, looked away just as quickly, and then lowered his head.

* * *

 

 _“_ The two of you know each other?” Teach slid a jug across the table toward Aziraphale before turning to the side and leaning back in his mahogany seat.

 _“_ I—wh—no,” Crowley replied, flustered, and Aziraphale reached forward to take the whiskey.

 _“_ Yes, we’ve known each other nearly as long as I can remember,” he said, and pulled a face when the demon scowled at him. “Oh, _really,_ dear. There isn’t any use in lying.”

 _“_ It’s what I do,” Crowley reminded him with a grumble, folding his arms to his chest and watching as Aziraphale took a swig of the drink without flinching.

 _“_ My. That is...potent,” he managed, and Teach tilted his head, appraising him before smiling.  Crowley had little doubt that the alcohol could have peeled the paint from the walls and that the pirate had hoped to elicit a stronger reaction from the angel than polite conversation.

 _“_ Am I right in assuming that having the lot of you in my custody could afford me certain privileges?”

 _“_ That I cannot say,” Aziraphale responded shiftily, and Crowley knew the answer to be yes. “What is it you plan to do with us?”

 _“_ A trade,” Teach said, arms behind his head as he sunk lower in his seat. “We relinquish you back to the Carolinas after the mainland sends me what I require.”

Aziraphale offered him a flat look, a stubborn light kindling in his sea-coloured eyes as he forced the jug back toward Teach.  “What if they refuse?”

 _“_ I’m no man with which to be trifled.  I'll lop off your heads, I suppose, and hand ‘em over as souvenirs. How’s that sound?”

 _“_ Positively grisly,” Aziraphale replied, unflappable as he straightened his collar, folding his fingers together and resting his hands serenely in his lap.

 _“_ Take a guess what it is Teach wants, A—Aziraphale,” Crowley stumbled, nearly calling him ‘angel’ instead, and Aziraphale gave him a glance out of the corner of his eyes to show that the near slip-up had not passed by him unnoticed.

 _“_ Oh, I don’t know. Silver. Gold. Precious stones. I believe that is what pirates seek, after-all.”

 _“_ Medicine,” Crowley supplied, pleased to watch Aziraphale’s eyes flutter in a confused blink, a frown rolling over his features like a bank of storm clouds passing over a meadow.

 _“_ Medicine?” Aziraphale repeated.

 _“_ Medicine,” Crowley affirmed.  "Some of the men are ill.”

 _“_ Some of the men may die if they don’t have it, and it’s easier to heal than to replace,” Teach’s voice rumbled out, pretending that convenience prompted his action rather than any sort of sentimentality.  Crowley sensed otherwise, however, and knew that if _he_ could feel it, so too could the angel.

 _“_ Ah.  That is...unfortunate,” Aziraphale mumbled.

 _“_ Aye,” Teach said, and he combed through his beard thoughtfully. “If they send us aid, we’ll release you without a hair harmed ‘pon your head.  You can even keep the _Crowley._ ”

 _“_ _What?”_ Crowley choked, and Aziraphale wriggled in the seat, twitching his shoulders and rolling his neck, staring directly ahead at the pirate captain as though he was the only other person in the room.

Teach waved his hand in the air. “Their ship—the _Crowley._ You didn’t know?  Bit funny, that one, I’ll admit.”

 _“_ Bit funny indeed,” Crowley echoed, placing his elbow on the desk and cupping his chin in his hand as he stared at Aziraphale.

The angel pointedly ignored him.

* * *

 

 _“_ I had _nothing_ at all to do with the ship’s title.”

It was the first words the angel spoke to him after they left Teach’s quarters. Night cloaked them then in thick darkness, a raucous shout from below decks breaking the quiet momentarily until the rhythmic slapping of waves against the wooden hull returned as a counterbalance to the silence between them.

 _“’_ Course not,” Crowley trilled, rocking on his heels and hunching his shoulders up toward his ears. “Common name, like John, or William.  Crowley.  Rolls _right_ off the tongue.”

 _“_ It is a surname, I believe,” Aziraphale replied waspishly, taking two steps backward when Crowley approached him.  His brow softened momentarily.  “I thought it a good omen.”

 _“_ How’s that?”

 _“_ Travelling on a ship with such a name.  And...” He faltered, turning away to look out over the inky water.

 _“_ And?”  Crowley prodded gently.

Had he the sight of a human, Crowley may have missed the slight exhalation Aziraphale performed at the question, thinking to himself before coming to a decision.  “Well. I suppose I have always liked the—the name.”

 _“_ I—wh—it’s a good name, yeah,” Crowley agreed, scratching at his cheek and screaming at himself on the inside.  “What’s—you’ve been out here, then? This _entire_ time?”

 _“_ I have. For the most part,” Aziraphale answered quietly, stiffly, as though he felt obligated to reply but wished he could be anywhere else _doing_ anything else.

 _“_ And you—you didn’t think to say anything?”

 _“_ Like what?” Aziraphale turned, giving him a tip of his chin.

 _“_ Oh, _I_ don’t know,” Crowley waved his arms out. “ ‘Oi, Crowley, I’ve grown a bit tired of England and all that, I think I’ll just bugger off to the Americas for a few decades.’ How’s that sound?”

 _“_ It sounds quite aggressive in tone; it really isn’t much like me to—to—”

 _“_ You know what I’m getting at,” Crowley interrupted, and Aziraphale swallowed, pivoting again to direct his portion of the conversation to the ocean.

 _“_ They tell me where to go, Crowley. It isn’t as though I have much—any—say in the matter.”

 _“_ You could have said something. I could have...”

 _“_ Could have what?”

 _Could have gone with you,_ Crowley wanted to say. _We could have gone together, if you liked._ But the words would have come out wrong—would have _sounded_ wrong, even to his own ears—and he faltered, stalling instead of answering the angel.

Aziraphale didn’t draw the conversation onward, didn’t poke at the coals and fan the flames back to life, but he did look in Crowley’s direction, and the demon felt some unspoken imploration that _he_ be the one to make a gesture, that _he_ be the one to reach across the divide.

 _“_ The entire time you’ve been aboard this ship, you’ve acted as though you hardly know me,” Crowley said finally, the issue having weighed on his mind the entire afternoon. Aziraphale had been polite; the perfect picture of an unassuming gentleman, but it was a distant politeness.  It was the cordiality of a shopkeeper to a customer, or to a nameless stranger bumped into on the street.  The angel had never been one for physical displays—it had, after-all, taken nearly fifty-seven hundred years to earn an embrace from him—but he had kept a padded space between them, growing irritable earlier in the day when he realised Crowley started to test him by moving closer and closer.

 _“_ Don’t you think that we,” Aziraphale paused, his right hand circling in the air restlessly, “don’t you think that we were getting to be a bit—a bit close?  A bit... _chummy?_ ”

Crowley sputtered, heart catching upon ‘were’.   _Were, not are._ “Yes?  That’s what friends _do,_ angel!  They get to know one another!”

 _“_ We _aren’t_ friends,” Aziraphale hissed, hands tight on the edging of the ship.  “We are _enemies._ I think you have forgotten that somewhere along the line.”

 _“_ No, I think _you’ve_ forgotten,” Crowley countered, fumbling and failing to grasp a good retort.  It evidently worked, however, as Aziraphale’s eyes widened, and he touched a hand to his lips.  “Admit it. You—you’re scared.”

 _“_ I—I _am_ scared,” Aziraphale said quietly, voice not quite a whisper, as though he admitted something to himself rather than to Crowley, and it was the demon’s turn to be surprised.

 _“_ I—I knew it!” Crowley blustered. “Afraid of Heaven! Sometimes you amaze me—you _really_ do. I think you’ve changed _so much,_ but then you say something and I realise you haven’t changed a bit since Eden.”

Aziraphale swung back to him, jaw set in his anger. “I am not afraid of Heaven!”

Crowley snorted, rolling his eyes. “Oh, that _is_ a lie; I can practically feel it rolling off you—”

“I am afraid of Hell!” Aziraphale interrupted, jarring Crowley into silence, and his temper fled him as quickly as it appeared, the angel’s shoulders—his whole frame—sagging as though the words took something from his soul the moment that he uttered them. “Of—of Hell.  Of...what they’d do.  To you.  We discussed it—briefly—back whenever you offered me almonds.  I haven’t forgotten, Crowley.”

 _“_ You ought to worry about Heaven instead, angel.” Crowley wouldn’t deny that a sliver of pleasure wormed its way into him at the idea that Aziraphale fretted for his safety, but such a sliver paled in comparison to the demon’s firm conviction that the angel ought to worry about _himself,_ as Aziraphale tended to trip and often land in situations that were troublesome at best and downright dangerous at worst.

 _“_ I have seen what Heaven can do,” Aziraphale dismissed the idea as though it meant nothing more than a particularly pesky fly buzzing around his face.

 _“_ And so have I!” Crowley fairly screeched, his hands a blur as he gestured to himself to nail down the idea that, yes, he knew something about Heaven and its methods for dealing with dissidents, possibly even from experience acquired first-hand.

 _“_ Crowley, if Heaven washes their hands of you, they—they chuck you out.”

 _“_ Oh, do they?” the demon muttered dryly. “I didn’t know.”

Aziraphale ignored his sarcastic remark. “You have a second chance.  With Hell.  No matter how—how rotten it is, _you have a second chance._ What happens when Hell doesn’t want you either?”

They both pondered the possibilities for a moment. “I don’t suppose they’ll throw me back up?  A game of celestial hot potato?” Crowley offered, and Aziraphale smiled ruefully.

 _“_ I wouldn’t get my hopes up if I were you, my dear.”

 _“_ Aziraphale...” Crowley shed his amusement, and the angel watched him but made no move to speak, leaving the floor solely to the demon. “If you were—were serious before, about worrying, we can part ways here, on this ship.  I’ll make certain Teach keeps to his pledge, and we can shake hands and let that be...that.”

Crowley believed he had a winning hand here; he _believed_ that he had come to know the angel well enough that he could play a risky card and take the pot, provided he tread carefully.

Aziraphale narrowed his eyes. “What are you playing at, Crowley?”

 _“_ Nothing,” Crowley put his hand on his right hip, leaning his weight onto his left leg as he slouched. “It’s better, isn’t it?  Isn’t that what you meant, saying all this?”

The angel worried at his ring, twisting it here and there upon his little finger. “I suppose it...is.”

Crowley thrust out his right hand, and the angel afforded it a look of mistrust. “No more temptations performed on my behalf.”

 _“_ No more dinners...” Aziraphale murmured wistfully.

 _“_ Oh,” Crowley replied thoughtfully, as though the idea had never occurred to him until Aziraphale uttered it. “No, I suppose not.  Still.  You win some, you lose some, eh?”

Aziraphale reached hesitantly for Crowley’s hand and—clenched his own hand shut, drawing it back toward his chest.

Just as Crowley had anticipated—

The angel abruptly changed his mind, gripping Crowley’s hand, and the demon was at a complete loss.

Right, no, why had he thought he could plot out how Aziraphale would react?  When had he _ever_ guessed correctly?

 _“_ Well,” Crowley said, mouth suddenly dry, and he swallowed. “That’s—right then.”

 _“_ Right,” Aziraphale echoed.

The handshake continued unbroken, stretching into what might have been considered uncomfortable territory.  Crowley, however, half-imagined that he could count up on ten fingers the amount of times he had touched Aziraphale since the dawn of time, and if he had to cling on a little longer than was proper, well, so be it.

 _“_ Good luck, then,” Crowley said.

 _“_ And to you.”

 _“_ Right,” Crowley repeated.

 _“_ Right,” Aziraphale echoed a second time.

Neither broke the handshake, and Crowley grew a little cross. “You have to let go.”

 _“_ _You_ have to let go!” Aziraphale countered, matching him in his annoyance, which only made the demon tighten his grasp. The angel, not to be outdone, squeezed harder still, and then they shook hands in an aggressive farewell until releasing simultaneously.

Crowley turned on his heel, his heart dropping.  He had only proposed the separation as a wild ploy; the whole business with the plague had shaken him, and he had felt if he said something— _did_  something—so outlandish, it may force Aziraphale to play his cards rather than hold them close to his chest.

He had been wrong, though.

_Again._

_“_ Crowley—Crowley, _wait,_ ” Aziraphale said when he had taken two steps away, and as Crowley turned back to him, the angel nervously licked his lips.  “I don’t—it’s—it may be safer to—to stick together, you know. Two heads are...are better than one, and all that.”

The demon exhaled, a heavy weight he carried for half a century falling from his shoulders. “I coined that phrase, you know.”

 _“_ You didn’t even!” Aziraphale chided as Crowley dipped back to his side, stepping closer than before so that his hip nearly knocked against the angel’s.

 _“_ I did!  It was after I’d seen a calf born with two heads—better to see the butcher with.  Get it?” he said, and as he watched Aziraphale shut his eyes as he laughed, Crowley smiled while a tight fondness taking up residence in his chest.

 _“_ You are incorrigible.”

 _“_ _Well,_ ” Crowley gave a jerk of his shoulders. “Been called worse.”

 _“_ Just now, though—you hadn’t _actually_ meant to stop this, had you?” Aziraphale said shrewdly, tipping his head to the side as he threw the demon a calculating gaze. “If I hadn’t said anything, would you have left?  Truly?”

 _“_ We shook hands!” Crowley sniffed. “Demon’s word—you can dependent on it.”

 _“_ Of course,” Aziraphale clucked in the manner that positively infuriated the demon.  It said ‘I don’t believe you at all, dear, but if it brings you comfort to lie to yourself, then I won’t be the one to stop you’.  “Do you plan to stay long here, with Teach?  Or—or Blackbeard, I suppose?  I’m meant to understand epithets are rather important for...for pirates and outlaws.”

 _“_ Ah, nah,” Crowley locked his hands behind his head to keep from falling into fidgeting.  “’m not particularly fond of boats.  Teach’s gonna have a couple of us escort the lot of you back—I imagine he’ll want me.”

 _“_ A shame,” Aziraphale sighed, and Crowley made a strangled sound at his response.  “I only mean that this sort of life seems to suit you, Crowley—that’s all.”

 _“_ Precisely. The thievery—”

 _“_ The way the ship floats upon the waves,” Aziraphale mimed the boat rocking.  “Everyone walks as though they have had far too much to drink.  You fit right in.”

 _“_ The—the killing—I _don’t_ walk as though I’m drunk!”

 _“_ And look!  You can wear your scarf!” Aziraphale reached forward, running the garment through his fingers and then patting it gently.

Patting Crowley gently, who lost his words for a moment before seizing them back again with renewed vigour.

 _“_ _Shut up!_ ” Crowley snapped, heat flooding traitorously quickly to his face. “It fits the aesthetic.”

 _“_ I never said that it did not,” Aziraphale replied with a quiet smile before giving a little jolt as he looked out over the water.  “Mmm...the stars!  It’s as though you can see each one out here, away from it all.”

Crowley enjoyed that best when sailing upon the seas; they glittered and glinted, quiet and cold but something familiar, something the demon could always glance toward and acknowledge that they would never diminish, never falter.  At times he spent hours looking at them, dredging up memories that seemed more now like faded dreams.

The demon wondered if Aziraphale wasn’t something like a star. Constant. Steady. Bright.

_Beautiful._

_“_ It’s nice,” he said, and he placed his hand on the wooden railing next to Aziraphale’s, brushing his finger against the angel’s.

Aziraphale looked at him, and while Crowley peered at him furtively out of the corner of his eye, he kept his head tilted back, pointing his gaze toward the heavens.

 _“_ It is nice,” Aziraphale agreed quietly, and smiled.

* * *

 

_1770 AD (5th March)_

_“_ And you are _certain_ that you do not have it?  I imagine you will know it as _The Freedom of the Will?_ By Erasmus?  I had heard...”

 _“_ I’ve told you before—haven’t got anything close to it,” the young man replied, wrinkling his nose at Aziraphale, who bit at his bottom lip and frowned heavily.  “I’m not _exactly_ an antiquarian; I only came into the old tomes I happen to have by accident.”

 _“_ Oh.  I see.  That isn’t very helpful to me, I’m afraid.”

 _“_ _Aziraphale,_ ” Crowley groaned, having been a silent partner to their babbling about dusty old books that held no interest to him for a good half an hour, if not longer. “For the last time—he hasn’t got it!”

 _“_ No need to be so tetchy; _I’m_ the one who ought to be put out over the whole affair,” Aziraphale grumbled, next levelling his frown in the demon’s direction.  “One travels a goodly distance for something and one expects to obtain it, that’s all I’m saying.”

 _“_ I apologise, but I don’t know who put it into your head that I owned anything by Erasmus.  I’ve never been particularly interested in philosophers,” Knox—the bookseller—replied.

 _“_ Oh, my dear boy! Even Voltaire?”

 _“_ Even Voltaire.”

Aziraphale shook his head as they walked, finally caught sight of the fierce stare Crowley offered to him—unfortunately mostly hidden by his darkened spectacles—and held up a finger.  “Ah! Right. Erm. Can I still come by tomorrow morning to pick up what I selected earlier?”

 _“_ Yes, ‘course,” Knox said amiably, and they crossed the street three abreast, with Aziraphale walking in the middle of their pack.

Crowley rolled his eyes, and the angel either noticed or sensed the gesture.

 _“_ Well, I need books if I am to open a shop,” Aziraphale replied to his non-verbal remark, and Crowley was willing to wager a bit of coin that, had they been stationary, the angel would have fiddled with his collar and stood a little straighter upon handing in his response. “It stands to reason.”

 _“ ‘_ _It stands to reason,’_ ” Crowley mimicked. “This again.  You’ve been on about it for years.   _Decades_ , even.  Either do it, or don’t.”

Knox glanced over at the two of them, brow furrowing as he began to tabulate and calculate how old this customer ought to—could—be, and how old, likewise, must be his gentleman friend.

 _“_ I need a stock.”

 _“_ Easily got.”

 _“_ _Proper_ stock,” Aziraphale amended.

 _“_ You know you’re meant to _sell_ the books, right?  Not just keep them?”

 _“_ That is _your_ opinion,” Aziraphale returned haughtily.

 _“_ That isn’t ‘my opinion’, that’s—” Without warning, Aziraphale snagged hold of Crowley’s arm, and the demon jolted at the unexpected touch. “Wh—Aziraphale?”

 _“_ Oh, this won’t be good at _all,_ ” Knox muttered beneath his breath, catching sight of what drew the angel’s attention at the same moment as did the demon.

If Crowley had been alert, he would have been able to feel out the tendrils of discontent swirling around the men gathered in the street.  It was an amalgam of emotions, each a seemingly deeper and darker shade of anger, and as a church bell rang nearby, more gathered to lend their fury to the forming crowd.

The bookseller sprang forward, lifting a hand into the air as he hurried ahead to join the group. “Here now!  What’s all this?”

 _“_ Crowley…?” Aziraphale glanced at the demon, an unwritten question plain in his tone if not present in his words. _You hadn’t felt this?  Surely you ought have done._

 _“_ I was too busy—I—I was distracted,” he hissed, and the angel raised his eyebrow as they reached the edge of the crowd.

 _“_ Get out of our city!”

 _“_ Crawl back home!”

 _“_ Bugger all of you!”

 _“_ Look—wait!” Knox said, having sifted his way through the collection of people and coming out near to the soldier, who stood on the steps of the Custom House. He clung tight to his weapon as though it were a shield rather than a musket. “You _cannot_ discharge into the crowd. If you fire, you must die for it.”

 _“_ What on earth is going on?” Aziraphale asked the scruffy looking sailor to his left, and the man spat to signify his contempt for the soldier.  Or, perhaps, the angel; Crowley wasn’t entirely sure which.

"Blasted soldier thinks he can do as he wishes and slap us ‘round.  Well! Not ‘ere, he can’t!”

 _“_ And _why_ is our soldier there whacking people left and right?” Crowley asked the fellow on his right, who bore the same amount of disdain as did the sailor but was a sight more garrulous on the subject.

 _“_ Young Garrick only told one soldier he had to square up his bill, and rather’n acknowledging him, he ignores him.   _Then_ our man up there comes out of his way to strike down poor Garrick, who was only doin’ his job.  That’s the run of it, so far as I know.”

 _“_ Look, angel,” Crowley said, nudging Aziraphale in the ribs, and they watched as seven men in brilliant red coats stamped past, guns cradled to their shoulders.

“Seven soldiers against—against—why, there must be three hundred people here, possibly more.”

 _“_ Disperse!” the leader of the uniformed men called, appearing calm in the face of a crowd whose collective rage mounted rather than diminished at the sight of more military men, who fanned out in a semi-circle around the original soldiers, bayonets fixed to the guns they began to load.  “Go about your business—go home; it’s getting late.”

 _“_ For God’s sake—take care of your men!  If they fire—you must die!” Knox cried desperately, repeating his previous plea, and the captain held up his hand, barely glancing at the bookseller.

 _“_ I am aware of it,” he said coolly.  “I am hardly about to order that they fire when I am stood in front of them.”

 _“_ This is a bit much,” Aziraphale muttered. “All of—all of _this,_ and for an unpaid bill!”

Crowley said nothing, watching as some men bent and scooped snow into balls before hurling them at the soldiers.  Many of the projectiles soared far past the men to pelt against the building behind them, or drooped and burst apart in the cobbles of the street, but a few hit their intended targets.

 _“_ Fire at us!”

 _“_ Do it!”

 _“_ Fire!”

A few near to the front of the crowd began to spit at the soldiers next when mere taunts provided no results, and the captain raised his voice, his temper clearly dissolving at the display from the colonists.  “Disperse!” he barked.  “I said _disperse!_ ”

A bottle shattered in a spray of glass at the feet of one of the soldiers, and Crowley noted that more than a few of the young man’s comrades began to shuffle and glance about wildly like penned cattle as the mob pressed nearer to them.  The satisfaction of throwing snow dimmed, and the townspeople plucked up stones and flung them instead while the Englishmen lifted their arms or ducked their heads to avoid the barrage.

 _“_ I ought to say something—”

 _“_ No.”

Aziraphale glanced at Crowley, surprised, and then fretted, twiddling his fingers in the air before clenching his gloved hands shut into helpless fists.

 _“_ Here now—are your weapons loaded?” a fellow wondered, brandishing a cudgel and waving it beneath the nose of the captain.

 _“_ They are indeed—as a safety precaution—but they will not fire lest I give the order to do so.  Please—step back.”

Someone in the crowd hurled an object large enough to bowl over a soldier, and he dropped his gun to the ground with a clatter as the civilians cheered and laughed. The boy scrabbled in the filthy snow, snatching up his musket and springing back to his feet, his face scarlet in shame at the public ridicule he had been handed as he growled, “Damn you!   _Fire!_ ”

His gun discharged with a crack, and there was a pause perhaps the length of a heartbeat or two before the remainder of the soldiers hoisted muskets to their shoulders and began to fire directly into the crowd.

Half the collected group seemed to wish to surge forward, to crush the English by sheer dint of number, and half pulled back, shouting and cursing as they started a retreat.  Snared by the pell-mell chaos, Crowley lost sight of Aziraphale, and he blinked in the wisp of smoke produced by the gunfire.

 _“_ Angel? Aziraphale!” he called, pushed back by two sailors who had firmly decided they wished to have no more part in the taunting. The demon spun desperately on his heels, looking frantically this way and that as something not unlike panic began to form in the pit of his stomach.  Could he have been…?  “ _Aziraphale!_ ”

 _“_ Crowley! I’m right—I’m here!” Aziraphale shouted, straining his voice to be heard over all the chaotic calling. He was momentarily blocked from sight by the profile of a quite dirty man, and he waved his arm as proof of his location, standing out from the undulating sea of people. “It’s—there’s quite a lot—they’re all jostling—”

 _“_ I’ve noticed!” Crowley yelled back, weaving his way toward Aziraphale, forcing down the urge to simply start elbowing men out of his way. “ _Stay_ where you are and I’ll come to you, angel!”

 _“_ I don’t—it’s—”

The demon caught a glimpse of Aziraphale only a few paces’ distance from him.  Trapped in one spot by both Crowley’s command and the crowd, Aziraphale was not unlike a twig thrown into a rushing spring, and he winced at the inadvertent jabs and jolts he received, but remained firm.

Until one fellow bolted through, twisting and finding gaps here and there, jerking forward in an attempt to free himself, and Crowley recognised him as the man who had knocked the soldier down—the man who had kicked off the whole affair.

He slammed into Aziraphale from behind, stumbling several steps but maintaining his balance in order to careen onward, shoving others out of his way as he continued unabated.  The angel lurched forward, falling to his hands and knees, and then the demon lost sight of him utterly.

It was at this point that Crowley determined that he had dealt with Quiet Enough, thank-you _very_ much.  He had suffered quite a lot in his time down here on earth with the humans, and had been forced to entertain a lot of notions that never quite appealed to him.

The idea that Aziraphale might be stomped into the stones pushed the needle on the monitor past the limit, and Crowley let out a wordless snarl to himself.

He needed _peace._

He needed _quiet._

He needed _time._

And he had it.

Everyone froze in place around him, their frenzied motions temporarily stilled, and Crowley inhaled deeply and then exhaled, already relaxing as he rolled his neck before ducking in the spaces between men as though they were nothing more than a forest of rather soft trees.

 _“_ They’ve—everything’s stopped,” Aziraphale said, eyes wide at Crowley’s approach, and he reached out to pull experimentally at the hem of a nearby sailor’s trousers.  “You can do this?”

 _“_ No, angel—our bookseller friend can,” Crowley snipped back, but his voice was gentle as he extended his hand to help Aziraphale to his feet.

 _“_ Have you ever used this to your advantage?” Aziraphale accepted Crowley’s assistance, and the demon hauled him upward.

 _“_ You mean like keeping you from being ground under a few hundred different bootheels?   _Nah—_ never _,_ ” he drawled, and the angel blushed and tugged his hand from Crowley’s grasp.

They picked their way through the immobilised crowd, and as Aziraphale glanced back toward the soldiers who held their muskets at the ready to defend themselves against any sort of retaliation, he sighed. “It is all so absurd.”

 _“_ What is?” Crowley wondered, and Aziraphale offered him a limited sweep of his hand as example.

 _“_ I have no doubt that their abrupt volley claimed victims; men have—have _died._ Why?  For a debt.  How much could the bill have been?  Was it worth several lives?  Was it worth even one single life?”

 _“_ It was never about the bill,” Crowley shook his head.  “You don’t understand.”

 _“_ Perhaps I do not,” Aziraphale returned with a hint of frostiness at the demon’s scoffing.

 _“_ No, I meant that you _can’t_ understand,” Crowley corrected, and Aziraphale glanced at him.  “This has been in the works for ages.  Years and years.  Anything at all would have culminated in—what happened here.”

Aziraphale said nothing, furrowing his brow as they ducked together beneath a man’s reaching arm.

 _“_ It isn’t even about those soldiers in particular.  It’s about—angel, they want to be free.  They want to do as they please, _when_ they please.  They don’t want to be told what to do by a ruler across the sea, a man who has never—and likely _will_ never—step foot in their land.  A sovereign who ignores them until they don’t do precisely as he’s said, and then he responds with brutality."

 _"_ Ah. They’re cross about—about a distant monarch who has no personal stake in the lives of his subjects?” Aziraphale said, voice a little too light to be natural, and the demon realised immediately that he had seized upon his meaning, even though Crowley had attempted to veil it.

 _“_ Y...es,” Crowley said as they neared the edge of the crowd. “That’s what I said.”

 _“_ And it could have been any soldiers at all in front of them, but it wouldn’t have mattered in the end? It could have been a _friend,_ but the—the red coat marks him otherwise?  In the end—it doesn’t truly matter?”

 _“_ I never said that.”

 _“_ You implied it,” Aziraphale countered just as quickly, and Crowley rounded on the angel as they freed themselves from the frozen crowd.

“I know what you’re doing _,_ ” Crowley said peevishly, and Aziraphale tilted his head a fraction, lifting his eyebrow slightly.  “And put your eyebrow down.”

 _“_ Crowley, I—how could I avoid drawing the comparison?  You’re right; I suppose I _don’t_ understand it—not as you would—not as you _must,_ ” he corrected, and Crowley grimaced.  “But what you have said...does that mean all of this—does it mean that _none_ of what we have done together will matter at the end?”

 _“_ Aziraphale—”

 _“_ Because there _will_ be an end.  It has been foretold, after-all,” Aziraphale reminded him, as though the demon could forget, and Crowley attempted to answer the angel before he continued.  “Whenever the apocalypse begins, I will simply be a—a soldier in front of you.  Everything that came before won’t have meant anything.”

 _“_ Angel!” Crowley grabbed him by the shoulders, and the angel stiffened at his touch but did not shy away. “If it comes to it, and we find ourselves face-to-face, I—you—I’ll surrender.”

 _“_ Oh, don’t be silly,” Aziraphale rolled his eyes, but some of the worry eased from his face as he shrugged out from beneath Crowley’s grip. “You won’t.”

 _“_ Ah, but I _will._ Drop to my knees and beg for mercy if I have to—that’d be a feather in your wing, taking a prisoner.  Do angels take prisoners?  Doesn’t sound very angelic, does it?”

A smile threatened to form on Aziraphale’s lips as he offered up the faintest of protestations.  “Crowley, _really_...”

 _“_ How would—what would you do?”

Aziraphale fell back into seriousness and glanced away, a trembling hand fluttering to his mouth as he looked for a reply hidden amongst the tableau.  His silence—his hesitation—was answer enough, and Crowley nodded to himself, _told_ himself that he could hardly have expected anything different.

Yet he had, hadn’t he, and that’s why it hurt _so much._

 _“_ Well,” the demon said to dispel the heavy quiet, heavier still given that they were the only beings making sound, “Best to fix this, then.”

Crowley released his control, and the resulting din of hundreds of voices rushing back to fill the vacuum may have staggered a lesser being.  The demon, however, stood unflappable, and he fixed his sunglasses to better cover his eyes as he swallowed down a great lump that seemed to have risen unbidden at Aziraphale’s response—or lack thereof.

 _“_ Come on, angel, before we get caught up again,” he sang out even as he replayed in his mind how Aziraphale cast his eyes from him, how he faltered and lapsed into silence.

He turned on his heel.

 _“_ Wait,” Aziraphale grabbed Crowley by his jacket sleeve, halting him.  “I—I don’t think I can do it.”

 _“_ You don’t think you can walk?” Crowley swivelled back to face the angel instantly, a handful of emotions duelling within him for supremacy. Confusion—Aziraphale had only been slammed to the ground; what could have happened to his legs to prevent him from hobbling to safety?  Better still, couldn’t he just skim a hand over the injury and will it better?  Anger— _who_ had dared trample the angel?  Absurd though it may be, Crowley wanted _names._ Pleasure—that last one was a bit bad, admittedly; taking delight in a friend’s pain could hardly be considered _good,_ obviously.  But—possibly Aziraphale would lean on him?  Possibly allow him to carry—no; the angel wouldn’t consent to _that,_ though the demon was certainly welcome to ponder it should he choose to do so, and, for a moment, he _did_ in fact choose.

 _“_ No—no. What you said before, I...” Aziraphale paused, weighing the words as though he balanced each one upon an invisible scale set against his soul.  Perhaps he did.  “I don’t think I could.  Do it, I mean.  Fight...you.  If it came to it, in the end.”

In anyone else, the response would have been lacklustre.  Too late, and too ambiguous besides.  You don’t _think_ you could do it?  It’s either you _would_ or you _wouldn’t._ But here Aziraphale straddled the line between black-and-white; the angel tripped into a grey area that Crowley previously hadn’t known existed, and while the demon would have preferred he did so for another topic, he recognised the magnitude of his admission.

 _Aziraphale didn’t think he could._ That reluctance would be enough—that reluctance, and the fact that the angel stated it aloud rather than kept it hidden— _that_ reluctance _was_ enough for Crowley, and a curious wave of affection rippled over him when he realised it.

 _“_ Come on, angel,” he repeated, his tone softer then than before, and Aziraphale performed a little hop forward to reach him.

* * *

 

_1793 AD_

As a rule, Crowley found it better to pack his bags and head for greener pastures when streets began to metaphorically run with blood.  Well.  Sometimes metaphorically,  _mostly_ literally.  It always led to trouble, and the wickedness humans dreamt up to torture and dispatch their own cast a gargantuan shadow over any plot a demon may concoct.

He had decided to leave France—to return to the safety of England or, perhaps, tread farther still to escape the rampant death.  Imagine!  Surviving birth, dodging childhood illnesses, and reaching adulthood only to be seized up, forced to kneel, and have a gigantic, sharpened blade dropped down onto your neck.  All for something you said.  Or didn’t say, as like as not.

Hearing chatter about one of the most recently captured prisoners caused the demon to postpone his plans.  A fussy Englishman could have been anyone at all; it wasn’t as though there was any great distance between the two countries, and _technically_ the description wasn’t quite accurate in describing Aziraphale.

_And yet._

Crowley found himself striding toward the gaol with old, unpleasant recollections surfacing at every footfall.  Discounting the whole gibbet affair, the last time that Crowley had sauntered into a gaol had been with Jehanne, and the demon recalled her pure gratitude when he simply offered her a morsel to eat.  He recalled, too, her last moments on the pyre, and he blinked away the memory.

This was hardly that building, but the same feeling of misery and despair had seeped into the stones over the duration of countless centuries, sopping up the sorrow and grief of prisoners both innocent and guilty, who lived out their days trapped in cells like cornered and caged animals.

Other demons would revel in it, but it made Crowley’s skin crawl.

Crowley passed no one in the dismal and dark hallway, and if he had, it would have been the work of a moment to make them forget that they had ever even seen him.  No, he moved freely, and flashed directly into the cell that he sought, forgoing the additional steps of opening and closing the door in order to wedge himself along the ledge of stone running beneath the set of bars.

Pulling his leg up, he rested his arm against his knee and pressed his back into the stone in a studied act of nonchalance.  There.   _Perfect._ He’d just dropped in.  Been in the neighbourhood, you see. Definitely hadn’t thought about the angel managing to find _some_ way to get his head cut off and immediately, frantically dashing down the length of three streets at the idea before remembering he could will himself closer and save precious time.  No.  Nothing like _that._

A Frenchman had entered just before Crowley, and the demon tipped his head back, watching him circle about Aziraphale as though he happened to be a particularly hungry shark and the angel was but a little, harmless fish.

Crowley had long ago learned otherwise—that Aziraphale projected that impression _purposely—_ and knew the angel could be quite different indeed when he set his mind to it.  He anticipated that Aziraphale would shake off the manacles bolted into the wall and clapped to his wrists, politely declining to join in the bloodbath before sidling to freedom.  But—he didn’t.

_Why didn’t he?_

_“_ This is—it is dreadful stuff.  Truly,” the angel puffed out his cheeks, both distressed and angered by the scene that took place only a few yards from where he sat, the screams of the victims and the roar of the crowd wafting in from the cramped little window.

 _“_ Ah, I agree,” the executioner tutted.  “Cheap labour; you get what you pay for.”

 _“_ I _do_ beg your pardon?”  Aziraphale replied testily, wriggling his hands slightly in his lap, the chains clinking together.

 _“_ He is new—unskilled—though they say practise makes perfect, no?”  He laughed, and the angel pursed his mouth together, his upper lip twitching in distaste as the man paced behind him.  “You ought to be honoured, though; it is I who will separate your head from your body.”

 _“_ Ah. What a relief _that_ is,” Aziraphale said dryly, and Crowley smiled fondly at the angel— _his_ angel, who still had not twigged his presence, caught up as he was in his dreary conversation.

The Frenchman stepped nearer Aziraphale, laying hands upon him in order to undo his frilled white necktie, and the angel suddenly lost his patience, hopping off his bench and pivoting to face the executioner.

 _“_ Oh, please!   _No!_ ” the angel commanded, and Crowley had to admit he was impressed at him barking orders, given that he currently found himself shackled and penned like a dog. “Dreadful mistake—discorporating me! Oh, it’ll be a _complete_ nightmare!”

Crowley decided he had borne witness to enough discussion, and as the Frenchman turned back to the window, a laugh on his lips, the demon froze him in place.  The angel carried on in his grumbling, unaware that his audience had shifted from two to one, unaware that he had an audience at all apart from the executioner, and the demon raised his voice as he spoke.  “A complete nightmare?  Not unlike whatever it is you’re wearing, I’m afraid.”

 _“_ _Crowley..._ ”  Aziraphale murmured, more an exhalation than a statement, and he spun to face the demon.  The angel’s eyes fairly danced, and the sight of his naked joy—where had it come from?  This was for _him?_ —struck Crowley, rattling him.  Aziraphale glanced him up and down, processed his insult, and then rolled his eyes at the demon.  “What _I_ am currently wearing?  Look at yourself— _Good Lord._ ”

 _“_ This is the fashion!” Crowley protested, plucking at his waistcoat defensively.  “What the _hell_ are you doing here in the Bastille?  What about your bookshop?  Thought you were finally, you know, putting books in it and all that.”

 _“_ I _was,_ ” Aziraphale said, slipping into a key of frustration.  “Only I got peckish—don’t look at me like that.  You know Paris is the only place to get a proper crepe.  Or brioche, for that matter.  So I decided to visit, got a _bit_ caught up in—in all of that _out there_ —and, ah, here we are now.”

Crowley pinched at the bridge of his nose.  “All of this over a pastry?”

 _“_ It isn’t _just_ a pastry, it—”

 _“_ C’mon,” Crowley cut him off, and Aziraphale fell silent but frowned, holding his arms awkwardly in front of himself.  “Why did you stay here?   Why don't you cast those off?”

 _“_ Ah!  Yes. That. Well...you see...” Aziraphale shuffled on his feet, and the chains rattled at his nervous motion. “Heaven is somewhat...cross with me.  At the, er, moment.”

 _“_ Yeah?”  Crowley felt a vague uneasiness as he wondered what Heaven might choose to do to punish a wayward angel.  Could it be something Aziraphale did on his benefit?  What would Crowley do if _he_ plunged Aziraphale into trouble?

He would never forgive himself.

 _“_ Oh yes. Sent me a—a strongly worded letter the month before about frivolous miracles.”

 _“_ Frivolous miracles?” Crowley sank back, both relieved and vexed at having been anxious only a second earlier.  “That’s it?  Frivolous miracles?  And you got a letter for it?”

 _“_ From Gabriel, brrr,”  Aziraphale said with a twitch of his shoulders, and Crowley shook his head, dropping his leg down to the ground as he turned to properly face the angel.

He snapped his fingers, and the chains slipped from Aziraphale’s wrists and clanged to the stone floor.  “Thank—”

 _“_ Ngh!  No!  Not another _word!_ ”  Crowley hissed, and Aziraphale touched his fingertips to his lips as though to keep from spontaneously offering the demon words of gratitude.  “Just—don’t go round Paris seeking pastries.  At least...don’t do it looking like _that._ I mean... _really._ ”

 _“_ I look quite nice!”  Aziraphale glanced down at himself for confirmation, threatening to stick out his bottom lip a fraction before thinking better of it, taking up a different thread entirely.  “Why are _you_ here?  Don’t tell me this is all _you._ ”

 _“_ Hell offered me a commendation for it,” the demon replied, and he found himself pained at the disappointment that spread quickly across the angel’s face.  “It wasn’t me, though; that’s _all_ them.”

 _“_ Curious,” Aziraphale perched on the edge of the bench, facing him, and Crowley shot a glance to the still frozen man.  Was it weird having a chat like this, with him standing there like a lumpy lamp?  Possibly?  Nah.  “That means you aren’t on the side of the radicals, then?  The—what was it, now?  Mont...hm...”

 _“_ Montagnards?  If you mean ‘me’ as in Hell, I’m not certain whether they have a hand in any of this at all; it’s been awhile since I’ve reported to them, and they don’t make an effort to inform me of their overarching plans.  If you mean ‘me’ as in ‘me’, the answer’s no.”

 _“_ So did you come over here to raid a bakery as well, then?”  Aziraphale asked, folding his hands together and resting them in his lap.

 _“_ Oh, yeah, ‘course.  I thought, why not cross a channel and get a bit of bread to chuck to the ducks, and here I am,”  Crowley replied sarcastically.  Aziraphale stared at him, his placid expression unchanging, and the demon slumped against the wall, rubbing at his eyes from behind his darkened spectacles.  “I’ve...I might have made things worse, angel.”

 _“_ How?” Aziraphale asked, voice impossibly soft, and Crowley sighed.

 _“_ You know how it goes; the road to Hell, good intentions, paved, etc. and so forth.  I—the Montagnards have been killing _everyone._ That isn’t revolution.  That isn’t for the good of your country.  When you—when you execute anyone that opposes you, that’s extermination.  Routing prisons and snuffing out anyone inside.  Rounding up women on the streets—children.  Aziraphale, they—what did the children do?  What could they _possibly_ have done?”

Aziraphale said nothing, and Crowley lowered his arm.

 _“_ I...had a conversation with this woman.  In a manner of speaking,” the demon said, listlessly waving his hand in the air.  “Told her she might feel a kinship with the Girondins.  She did.”

 _“_ You spoke to Charlotte Corday, didn’t you?” Aziraphale asked, realisation dawning upon him, and the demon need not reply for the angel to know the truth. “Oh, Crowley...”

 _“_ She already entertained the idea,” Crowley said to himself, thunking his head back lightly into the stone.  “All I did was take a stick and find the coals beneath the ashes.  What she said at her trial—‘I have killed one man to save a hundred thousand’—I might have heard that thought before she did, but it was inside her the entire time, like a scream.  I only pointed her toward it.”

 _“_ Hell is...pleased with you, at any rate.  Congratulations on...such an achievement.”

 _“_ Don’t—don’t do that,” Crowley groaned, rubbing at his temple in the face of Aziraphale’s awkward and hollow accolades.

 _“_ What am I supposed to say, then?” Aziraphale replied, exasperated.  “I have already heard an earful as it is from Heaven without going round heaping praise on—on a _demon,_ for a job...badly...done.  And it is _murder_ that we are talking about.”

 _“_ No, I only tempted her into joining the Girondins and implored her to listen to herself.  What she did otherwise had nothing to do with _me._ ”

 _“_ Oh, pish.  You and I both know that isn’t true; you’re the ruddy serpent!  Your tempting is—is—it never fails,” Aziraphale said, falling short of the words he sought and growing peevish for it.

Crowley could hardly counter that, and so he returned to the issue of murder.  “As if you can turn your nose up at _killing._ Your lot might as well go round with guns, shooting down ‘evil’ people and chalking it up as a win for Heaven.”

 _“_ That is a _gross_ overstatement—”  Aziraphale rose from his bench, and Crowley hopped up to meet him.

 _“_ _Is_ it?  Remind me again who it was that flooded the earth?  Was it Satan?   _No…_ So who could it have been, I wonder?  It’s on the tip of my tongue...”

 _“_ Crowley—”

 _“_ If you blame Marat’s death on me, it may be exactly as she said, and I’ve—I’ve bungled, obviously.  Saved a hundred thousand lives,” Crowley said, swallowing nervously.  “Doesn’t it just make your angelic heart _sing?_   What, precisely, has _your_ lot done?  What have _any_ of you done to stop this?”

 _“_ As far as I know, Heaven has the same level of involvement as does Hell—which is to say...none whatsoever,” he said quietly, blinking, and he waved his hand up and down, swapping out his clothes for the florid vestments of the executioner.  When he realised the demon stared, he glanced toward Crowley, then the ground, then back at Crowley again.  “This hardly counts as a miracle.”

Crowley snapped his fingers, giving the Frenchman one moment of brief, unparalleled panic before two rather recent former allies swooped in to drag him away, deaf to his babbling protestations and pleas.  Sending him toddling off to his death did not bother the demon one single jot; he had menaced Aziraphale, taken delight in the thought of instilling fear in a man he would soon lead to the guillotine.  Possibly he would now regret doing so.

_But what did the angel think?_

_“_ Aziraphale...” Crowley started, and Aziraphale seemed to guess at what he wished to say.

 _“_ The possibility of saving a hundred thousand lives _does_ ‘make my angelic heart sing’, upon reflection,” he said, and the look in his eye seemed a little cool, a little detached, before he suddenly glanced at Crowley and brightened.  “Ought we get lunch?”

Crowley hardly had the inclination to remind him that a new executioner would simply crop up to take his place—he supposed that’s how it was, wasn’t it?  So Corday killed Marat.  So the executioner had his just desserts.  Another would come along before the body was cold, and another, and another, each as equally vile as the last.  What mattered in the end, when you thought about it?  What _really_ mattered?

The demon supposed it was the little things.  The human things.  He supposed it was a smile from a friend.  A laugh.  A conversation over lunch that stretched into dinner that waded into drinks at midnight that crawled into bleary snoozing together at dawn.

He supposed it was the promise that, though things may be bad for the moment, there was always the possibility that they could be— _would be—_ better in the future, if only one was willing to wait out the storm.

On a whim, he jutted out his elbow to the angel and, to his surprise, Aziraphale placed his hand gingerly into the crook of his arm, hesitating but taking a small step toward Crowley.

 _“_ I think I fancy a crepe,” Crowley said, and as Aziraphale eased into a brilliant smile—a smile brought about merely by the offer of a pastry!—the demon felt that all too familiar warmth flutter up from the pit of his stomach in order to take lodging just beneath his ribcage.

Aziraphale breathed in sharply, his fingers tightening against Crowley’s arm, and Crowley glanced at him, finding the angel studying him with a wide-eyed expression.

 _“_ What is it?  Had a change of heart with the Frenchman?  Shall I fetch him back again?”

 _“_ N-no, I—” Aziraphale shut his eyes, inhaling a breath and then exhaling it just as quickly, and trotted out his smile again, somewhat faded now at the corners.  “Just...thinking about what I wish to order at the restaurant, my dear.”

 _“_ Oh.  Right.  C’mon; we ought to get a leg on,” the demon said affably, but as Aziraphale dropped his smile and licked his lips, Crowley couldn’t help but wonder at what had _really_ crossed the angel’s mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Bumbo is rum, sugar, nutmeg, and water. Navy sailors were allowed a ration of grog per day, and it was flavoured with lime to help combat scurvy. Bumbo tasted better, and pirates could afford to drink it (it having no lime in it) because their trips were shorter and they had more fruits and vegetables in their diet than did Navy sailors.  
> *All the names are names of Blackbeard’s crew from that year. I don’t know if they were all aboard that specific ship of Blackbeard’s, but I think I’ve done well enough.  
> *Molly was a term for homosexual.  
> *Blackbeard really did stop nine ships, and one he did stop and hold the people aboard prisoner until medicine was sent to him to treat his crew. And yes, it was called the Crowley. I thought it a stupendous coincidence when I was trying to think of things to do, and thought it would be a funny reference to make. So here we are!  
> *The Freedom of the Will by Erasmus (1524) was a rebuttal to Martin Luther saying God had more control over people’s lives. Erasmus argued that God had knowledge of what would happen but let people act as they wanted and judge them based then on what they did rather than force them to sin and then condemn them for sinning. Erasmus also said that God could intervene but ultimately chose against it, so God could be technically but not directly responsible for things happening.  
> *Henry Knox was a bookseller, and was a witness to the massacre who tried to stop things from escalating. The dialogue I had him say to the soldiers was mostly the dialogue he was recorded as having said. The Boston Massacre really stemmed from exactly what I said—and the soldier had even paid his bill earlier that day, so, there you go. Also people did taunt the soldiers and attempt to goad them into shooting as well, and Captain (Preston) did reply that he had no plans to tell them to fire as he was standing in front of his soldiers. Actually, most of everything that was said was really said (or at least during the court trial for the soldiers it was stated to have been said).  
> *The French Revolution thing is a LOT, but. Basically both the Girondins and the Montagnards wanted to change the government system. The Girondins wanted a more moderate reform, and the Montagnards’ motto was basically “you’re not with us? You die.” They did kill prisoners, prostitutes, the insane, women and children along with their political rivals. Charlotte Corday found her way to the Girondins and decided that if she killed Marat, she could save a lot of people, like cutting the head off a snake. So she met with him while he was taking a bath (he had a debilitating skin disease) and stabbed him in the chest with a knife. He died fairly quickly after—you’ve probably seen at least one painting based on that scene. They thought she was spurred on by some lover into doing what she did, but when they did a medical examination after her death (yeesh), they discovered she was still a virgin. Also Crowley is 100% right. Killing Marat made everything much, much, M U C H worse. He became a martyr, and the executions and murders were cranked up to like 11. Anyway! I couldn’t resist as Charlotte Corday killed Marat and was executed in 1793, and then the Bastille scene was set in 1793...
> 
> Also I really wanted to at least point out that Aziraphale had that dude killed! Why don't we talk about this more?? THAT'S ALL ON HIM.
> 
> Anyway, sorry this took so long. I have to return to check this over as I must be out the door, so if there are errors, I'm sorry. I just NEEDED to post this. I'll return with another part sooner. See you then!


	12. 1818 AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley visits a bookshop.

_1818_ _AD_

Crowley stood outside the door, gripped with a surge of nervousness. He didn’t _get_ nervous; he was an—an agent of Hell, and all that. _He_ made people nervous; people didn’t make _him_ nervous.

But then, of course, Aziraphale was not quite ‘people’; he wasn’t even one solitary Person, and so the demon scuffed the front edge of his boot along the pavement, vacillating as a couple out for a promenade waltzed serenely by him, blissfully unaware of his inner turmoil.

He glanced at the sign, firmly set to _Closed,_ and pushed past it, a bell tinnily ringing overhead as he entered the shop.

 _“_ I _do_ apologise, but we are not open at the moment!”

 _“_ I know; I can read,” Crowley said as he closed the door.

Aziraphale emerged from behind a bookshelf, broom brandished as though he considered wielding it as a weapon. When he caught sight of the demon, he decided against it, visibly relaxing. “Ah! Crowley! It’s nice to see you.”

 _“_ Were you going to hit me with that? _Should_ you bash customers as they come in the door?”

“I think I am permitted the liberty, if they enter my shop while it is closed,” Aziraphale gestured toward the sign with the broom before bustling off into a back room as Crowley fidgeted on the spot.

 _“_ What— _what_ is that smell?” Crowley sniffed the air and grimaced. It was the embodiment of unpleasantness, slapping him in the face the moment that he entered—it would have made him think twice to stop and peruse the shelves.

He was not there to peruse shelves, however; he had never _once_ been interested in perusing shelves.

He was there to see an angel, who had disappeared into the back and not yet returned.

 _“_ Angel!”

 _“_ Yes?” Aziraphale called in return, voice muffled, and Crowley stepped toward the counter, barren except for a beaten book marked near to the middle with a faded blue ribbon.

 _“_ The smell. What _is_ that?”

 _“_ I don’t know what you mean,” the angel chirped, reappearing sans broom and dusting his hands together as he approached the demon. Crowley flagged the evasive note in his tone for what it was and recognised the mischievous glint in his eye; Aziraphale knew _precisely_ what marked his bookshop as odorous and chose to pretend otherwise.

The demon could grant him that feigned ignorance, if he wished.

 _“_ Where’s your box? To put the money in?”

 _“_ Unimportant,” Aziraphale waved his hand as he rounded past Crowley before stopping abruptly, turning back to him. “Are those—did you bring those for me?”

Crowley recalled that he had purpose in entering the shop, that he had not simply dropped in on a whim, and he glanced down before thrusting his arms out toward the angel. “Yeah. Right. Take ‘em.”

Aziraphale reached out and removed the flat box from the demon’s possession, giving it a curious shake and blinking when it rattled in response. “What is this?”

 _“_ I dunno, angel. Why don’t you open it?” he suggested casually even as he fidgeted on the spot, anxiously watching as Aziraphale set it down upon his desk, undoing the ribbon deftly and placing it gingerly aside before lifting off the top.

 _“_ Oh. Is it—are these sweets?” Aziraphale peered over his shoulder, and Crowley lifted his arm in a helpless gesture, imploring him to see for himself.

The angel pried one out, cautiously tasted it, and then covered his mouth with his hand.

 _“_ Oh my! It’s—this is chocolate! Where did you get it done this way?”

 _“_ Guh—” Crowley began, and Aziraphale continued.

 _“_ You must try it—no, _try_ it,” he wheedled as Crowley immediately, reflexively, rejected the offer. The demon shrugged in defeat, and Aziraphale plucked out a dark square before Crowley could stop him. “Here.”

 _“_ Nuh—” he said as Aziraphale passed him the chocolate, the angel’s fingertips lingering against his lips, and the demon ducked away, biting down hard on the sweet.

 _“_ Did you bring these for—for my shop opening, or for...” Aziraphale stopped sifting through the box, trailing off as his gaze drifted across his face, finally meeting Crowley’s eyes.

Heart beating frantically, the demon rubbed at the back of his neck with his free hand. “Y-yeah! It’s—a thing. People...do it. Give ‘em out. For...shops opening. Not just shops! Could be anything. A—a congratulation!” Crowley faltered, catching the angel’s look of disappointment as he turned back to the sweets, poking at them curiously.

What had he wanted to hear? Crowley could not be certain that there _was_ a right answer that he could give—and why did he care what Aziraphale thought?

That, of course, was the most miserable joke of all—he had cared since the very beginning; cared without notice, then couldn’t stop caring when he realised it.

No— _focus._ Why was Aziraphale disappointed? Was it not enough? Crowley thought more would be—would be too much. Was it not enough? No, couldn’t be; the angel had appeared surprised at his showing up in the first.

Then what—

 _“_ Chocolates _and_ flowers?” Aziraphale interrupted his thoughts, reaching for the bundle that Crowley clung to as though it was a bobbing bit keeping him afloat in a vast sea. He thought better of it, however, and hesitated, his hand hovering over the blooms, fingers curling in toward his palm. “May I?”

 _“_ Oh. Yeah. Of course—yes,” Crowley said easily, quickly falling into what could possibly be considered something of a rambling mess. “It’s—it’s a human tradition. Just something that’s done. They’re not all bad. Could do with some flowers. May help with the smell. Not that I knew it smelled when I bought them. Lucky, that was. Well, not lucky with the smell, lucky with the...you know...flowers...”

 _“_ Ah,” Aziraphale relieved him of the floral arrangement, and Crowley felt as though he danced just a beat off to a tune he could not hear. The angel smiled, but his enthusiasm seemed dampened—muted. “I suppose I will need something to put them in, and I will have to figure out where to set them...”

 _“_ Why not there?” Crowley waved to the counter, which held a new glass vase filled with water, and Aziraphale flashed a genuine smile at the demon as he began to arrange the gift with care.

With the first flower, a furrow appeared between his brow, and he twirled the small, delicate stem between his fingers before touching it thoughtfully to his nose. “Where did you find this?”

 _“_ In...in a shop. As you do,” Crowley sniffed, a flicker of irritation welling within him at the question. It was either a shop or crawling around picking them, and did he _look_ as though he would be found in the brush on his hands and knees tugging them up? “Got those from a girl, actually, but the others, er, the shop.  Why?”

 _“_ Well—I am quite certain they do not grow here; I think they are native to the States. A girl was selling them? In the street?”

 _“_ Y-yeah,” Crowley recalled the girl’s surprise when he found the splash of white in amidst the collection of violets.

Aziraphale placed them into the vase, pausing over the second cluster of flowers, smoothing out a flattened petal. “They have a pleasant smell, don’t you think?”

Crowley noted the twitching downturn of Aziraphale’s lips and how he ran his thumb up and down one of the slender stems, his eyes focused on the gift in front of him but his mind clearly elsewhere. “Do—do you not like them? Would you have rather had something else? Or...”

 _Or that I hadn’t come at all?_ Crowley couldn’t bear to ask it; couldn’t bear to hear the angel answer in the affirmative.

 _“_ No, no, these are...” Aziraphale abruptly broke off as he focused on the last portion of the flowers. “Jonquils. Lovely.”

Crowley watched Aziraphale’s hands tremble as he stared down at the yellow flowers, and the angel placed them into the vase quickly, jamming them in to join the rest haphazardly, not at all like the tender fashion in which he had situated the others.

He swivelled on his heel, turning his back on the vase and closing his eyes for a moment before glancing over at Crowley, smiling as though he remembered he ought to be polite. “They are quite pretty. Thank-you.”

 _“_ I can take them with me. If you want. If they don’t fit the—your aesthetic, and all that,” Crowley ran his words together, hoping if he spoke fast enough the angel may decline, may ignore his offer altogether.

 _“_ Hm?” Aziraphale cast a glance back at the article in question, favouring the vase with a look as though it had the ability to hold a secret conversation with the angel, and then shook his head decisively. “No. It isn’t that. It’s—I wonder.”

 _“_ Yes…?” Crowley prompted.

 _“_ I’ve...” the angel started to fidget, fussing with his waistcoat and then wringing his hands together, looking all about the shop in every direction except Crowley’s. “Can I give you something? Since you brought me these—these flowers? And the chocolates?”

Crowley laughed. “Angel, you don’t get _me_ gifts; I get _you_ gifts. That’s how it works.”

 _“_ Still. I would like to—to do this. Um. Wait here. Or—no. Make yourself comfortable; this may take me a moment. I can’t recall precisely where it is that I’ve put the blasted thing. Don’t let anyone come inside.”

 _“_ Because you’re not open; yes, yes, I know,” Crowley said as Aziraphale wriggled his shoulders.

 _“_ If they look in and see you here, they’ll think I _am_ and just toddle on in, and I don’t—”

 _“_ I _won’t_ let anyone in,” Crowley cut him off in exasperation, recognising Aziraphale had taken the first steps toward the formation of agitation, and the angel relaxed, a small smile bubbling up at his reassurance.

 _“_ Ah, good. Thank-you!” the angel said, promptly swishing away behind a nearby bookcase and leaving the demon to his own devices.

Crowley stalked aimlessly about the space, suddenly bored without Aziraphale’s presence. He roamed past shelves and yawned, stuffing one hand into a pocket and running the other along the edges of books stood rigidly neat. Tugging out one tome, he flipped through the pages restlessly before snapping it shut and returning it to its designated spot.

The curious name emblazoned on the spines of three sepia books caught his eye, and he smiled, recalling the completely abysmal summer of two years ago. He had shuttered himself indoors most days, sulking and pacing as frost formed on the window panes and the rain poured down in icy shards—in _June._ The little artistic troupe that had invited him along preferred also to stay out of the weather, listlessly strewn about on seats, staring mournfully out onto the lawns or scratching furiously away on paper until they began to tell ghost stories to pass the time.

The demon had told only of things he witnessed, of events that sometimes rose up in dreams, reminding him that he could never truly forget what he once witnessed long ago. Drowning in a rain that did not end. Plaintive pleas uttered before being run through with a sword. Burning alive to save a nation. He cobbled a story together, prying out bits here and there from his experiences, stopping his tale when he caught sight of their uniformly pinched and pale faces, haunted by the horrors he wore like a glove—so familiar that he could nearly forget that he had been present at all.

He sat down in the seat behind the counter, turning the pages of the book but not reading the words, thinking instead of that summer. Aziraphale would have liked it there—would have liked it far more than did Crowley, if the demon was honest; he would have pestered everyone else ceaselessly about this book or that poem, and he laughed to himself at the image, cradling the swift fondness that welled up within him for the angel.

 _“_ What is it?” Aziraphale wondered, reappearing with a handsome, crimson coloured book, and Crowley shook his head.

 _“_ Nothing. Just...thinking.”

 _“_ Hm. Well, here you are,” Aziraphale held the book out, and when Crowley took it, he noted the novel the demon held already. “Oh? What’s—ah! You’ve found the _Frankenstein,_ then.”

 _“_ Yup.”

 _“_ Limited run of five hundred,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley had only the way in which the angel proudly cooed to determine that was something Quite Special Indeed.

 _“_ Oh yeah? Nifty,” he said, borrowing from Aziraphale’s vocabulary, and the angel pursed his lips together in momentary disapproval at such verbal theft before returning to his recent enthusiasm.

 _“_ It is indeed, now that you mention it,” he said, stretching his hand toward the book, and Crowley held the volume out of his reach, not quite ready to part ways with it.

 _“_ And how much are you selling it for, then?”

Aziraphale made a sudden burst forward, snatching the book away from him as though the demon had transformed into a prospective buyer before his very eyes, and he held it close to his chest. “I—well—it was so enjoyable I don’t know that I _ought_ to sell it. Not quite yet, anyway.”

 _“_ You enjoyed it? _Frankenstein?_ ”

 _“_ You’ve...read it?” Aziraphale paused, suspicious.

 _“_ No, no, no. I don’t have time to read,” Crowley leaned back in Aziraphale’s seat, hands behind his head as he put his boots on the desk, immediately straightening and dropping his legs back to the ground, however, at the Look the angel levelled at him. “I heard it told, though.”

 _“_ Who read this to you?” Aziraphale glanced down at the volume as Crowley sighed.

 _“_ You aren’t _listening,_ angel. It was _told,_ not read. She came up with it and then read it to the rest of us.”

 _“_ _She?_ ” Aziraphale’s eyes lit up, his fingers tightening around the copy he held. “You—you know who wrote this?”

 _“_ Er, yeah? And you don't?  Isn’t it customary to pop it somewhere on there? Title, author,” Crowley waved his hand through the air in front of him. “Nice gold font, and all that?”

 _“_ It is _anonymous_ , although the popular theory was that Percy Shelley wrote it, what with his preface and the dedication to Godwin,” Aziraphale said, and Crowley nodded to indicate he, too, would have definitely considered that line of thought.

 _“_ Right. Of course.”

 _“_ Who did it?” Aziraphale pressed, tilting nearer to the demon, and Crowley’s breath snagged in his throat at the angel’s close, eager proximity, curiosity dancing all across his features.

“Wh—it—” he faltered.

Aziraphale tapped a finger to his lips in contemplation. “I suspect it must be Godwin’s daughter Mary, then, given the link between preface and dedication. Am I correct? I _am?_ Oh! I ought to try to track the woman down...get her signature...wouldn’t that be nice?”

Crowley already rued the angel swift departure, caught up as he was with the notion of finding the woman in order to blather away over literary topics, and he sat up straighter in the seat. “Sure. Sounds like a perfect day,” he said, and Aziraphale turned back to him, curious.

 _“_ How do you know the full story, though? I have heard that it took quite awhile to complete. You...you stayed with Wollstonecraft until she finished?” Aziraphale said lightly, in the manner that told Crowley that he did not consider the topic light in the least.

 _“_ No. They’d made it a game—coming up with ghost stories—and we all sat ‘round and told them,” Crowley said, pressing his sunglasses farther up his nose.

 _“_ They who?”

Crowley sifted through his mind for their names, pulling them out from others long lost to the sands of time. “Polidori, Shelley, and Byron,” he said, and Aziraphale’s eyes got wider with each successive name. “How does—how does the story end? Happily, I assume?”

Aziraphale smiled ruefully at the sarcasm in the demon’s voice. “Alas, I’m afraid not. Although...one cannot help but feel for the creature. Seeking acceptance...looking for someone similar to him with whom he can spend his life.”

Crowley watched as Aziraphale rubbed his thumb back and forth along the spine of the book, staring past him to view the flowers instead. “Are—are you thinking of yourself, angel?”

He gave a little start at the question. “I...of course not,” Aziraphale replied. “ ‘I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel’; it reminded me of _you,_ Crowley.”

A poor, pitiful creature seeking love from a creator who turned his back on that which he brought life? An existence measured in a solitude few could understand? That was—

 _“_ Absurd. Ha!” Crowley crowed with a hollow laugh, throwing his arms behind his head as he leaned back once more in the seat, this time ignoring Aziraphale’s frown. “Not a chance, angel!

Aziraphale only watched him, saying nothing, and Crowley waggled the gifted book at him. “This is a book about plants.”

 _“_ Yes! I thought you may be pleased, since you enjoy them.”

 _“_ I--I don’t _enjoy_ plants,” Crowley stammered at the preposterous notion. “I don’t know anything _about_ plants, other than they tend to be green and grow up from the ground!”

Aziraphale blinked, and then blinked again for good measure. “You...don’t? The flowers you brought me didn’t mean anything in your mind?”

They reflected Crowley burgeoning desire to do foolish things. To take the angel’s hand in his own as though it meant nothing, as though he did it all the time. To—to see what it would be like to cup Aziraphale’s face, to kiss his nose, his chin, his brow, and his cheeks before finally settling upon his lips.

 _“_ They meant ‘Oi! Thought you’d like some flowers, isn’t it what humans do?’ ” Crowley said.  “What were they _supposed_ to mean?”

 _“_ Er...” Aziraphale swallowed, lapsing into silence, and Crowley took a better look at the book the angel had given to him.

 _“_ Hang on—this says flower meanings too! Did— _what did those flowers say to you?_ ”

Aziraphale wiggled a little, voice prim. “They didn’t say anything at all, as flowers cannot speak,” he said, and his lips twitched, threatening to shape into a smile.  “Well. Apart from the _tulips_ , of course.”

He gave a broad wink, and Crowley rolled his eyes into the back of his head with a groan as the angel began to titter over his joke. The shop’s bell jangled loudly to direct them to the unwanted arrival of customers, and the demon flicked the book open, turning hastily through the pages to figure out what he had inadvertently announced to Aziraphale. What were the flowers? Jonquils, hadn’t he said? He’d start with them, then.

 _“_ Oh, now, this really is _too much,_ ” Aziraphale said to himself, voice strained in a manner that would have seen him throwing in a few Impolite Words had he been anyone else as he set _Frankenstein_ down on his desk.

 _Jonquils..._ There they were. Desire? _Seeking a requited love?!_

 _“_ Angel!” He squawked. “About those flowers—”

 _“_ Good morning!” a new voice rang out from the front door. “Sign says closed but, you know, I’m not really here to buy anything!”

Crowley hurriedly slammed the book shut, sitting upright in one fluid motion as Aziraphale backtracked the few steps he had taken to politely flush out the unwanted customer.

 _“_ It’s—it’s Gabriel!” Aziraphale rubbed his hands together, chewing at his lip. “You _cannot_ be here!”

 _“_ Yeah, right, I _got that,_ ” Crowley smoothed himself out of the seat, forced into nonchalance even as the angel bustled around the corner of the counter to meet him, pressing his hands into his back and nudging him into a quicker pace.

 _“_ You have to _go,_ ” Aziraphale hissed, and Crowley waved his arms as the angel thrust him forward.

 _“_ Aziraphale! Are you in here?”

“Where, exactly? Out the front bloody door? That was Sandalphon there—should I just give both of ‘em a wave and say ‘excuse me’ as I go between?” Crowley snipped.

 _“_ There’s—I have a back room. Stay in there and don’t make a _sound._ ”

 _“_ But—”

Aziraphale prattled onward, nerves clearly fraying as he spoke more and more to himself rather than to the demon at hand. “Why are they here? They shouldn’t _be_ here. Coming now, like this, when I have so much to do! I cannot fathom what they would think—how they would react if they caught you sitting at my counter. I’ve—I can’t protect you from them. Not even so much as a—a warning! That would be the courteous thing to do, though I suppose they feel as though they needn’t do it, God’s messengers and all that.”

_I can’t protect you from them._

A long slumbering memory crept up from the depths of his mind, and Crowley recalled speaking with him in the Roman garden, remembered vividly Aziraphale’s certainty he ought not involve himself with whatever may happen to Crowley. At that moment, however, he threw out the notion easily, as though he ought to defend the demon automatically, should he be able to do so. “Angel...”

 _“_ Do be quiet!” Aziraphale cried, giving him a final shove, and when Crowley turned back to him, he fluttered his hands in a clear message that the demon ought to make himself altogether scarce at once.

Crowley slipped into the cramped room, squeezing in amongst towering boxes of books that were doomed never to leave the shop, undoubtedly to be relegated instead to gathering dust and inviting families of spiders to set up camp and spin webs across the tops of their pages.

 _“_ Ah, there you are,” Gabriel said, and Crowley crept nearer to the crack of the door, unable to see the cluster of angels but better able to hear them. “What _is_ that smell?”

 _“_ Er...”

 _“_ Evil,” Sandalphon said.

 _“_ Oh! That’ll be the Marquis de Sade,” Aziraphale said, hastily changing the subject. “If—if this is about all of...of _that_ , in Paris, I’ll have you know the miracle wasn’t mine. Not—not fully.”

 _“_ I don’t know what you’re babbling about,” Gabriel silenced Aziraphale decisively, like hurling a cup of water on a fire, and Crowley nursed a spark of anger over the fact that his angel could be stifled so effortlessly. “We’ve got good news for you, oh Angel of the Eastern Gate.”

 _“_ Oh…? Splendid!”

 _“_ You’re coming home.”

“Theyre promoting you back upstairs,” Sandalphon added helpfully.

Crowley’s hand shook against the doorknob before he held tighter to it. _A promotion._ Crowley didn’t see it as such; it seemed a punishment, to put a being down on Earth, let him roam around free for millennia, and then suddenly give a great big yank on an invisible lead, dragging him back to Heaven.

Away from all the beauty of Earth.

_Away from Crowley._

_“_ Ah, this is...I only _just_ opened the shop; haven’t...haven’t _technically_ opened it, actually...”

 _“_ I’m sure whoever replaces you will make good use of it,” Gabriel sniffed.

 _“_ Make good use? Of _my_ shop?” Aziraphale sputtered, indignation coursing into his tone at the very notion that someone else may settle in and utilise the fruition of a dream he had nurtured for centuries.

 _“_ "Sure.  After you come home, obviously."

:"You must be thrilled; who’d want to stay here any longer than they have to?” Sandalphon grumbled.

 _“_ Aziraphale’s been down here for nearly _six thousand years,_ and his work hasn’t gone unnoticed.”

 _“_ Ah, that’s...a medal. I don’t want a—a medal.”

 _“_ A medal, a promotion—this really is a big honour for you!”

“But...” Aziraphale fumbled.

Were the angels complete idiots? How could they not hear the rising note of panic in Aziraphale’s reply, chipping away at the edges of his words, his voice pitching upward as he grasped frantically for a way in which to free himself?

Or worse—did they recognise his reaction for what it was and simply ignored it?

 _“_ I’m needed. Here. On Earth. To...to thwart the demon Crowley, you see. He’s very...very wily, after-all. Terribly—terribly tempting.”

 _“_ Whoever replaces you will be worthy of the task, I’m certain. Maybe Michael?”

“But...Crowley has been down here as long as I have. He’s...he’s thoughtful—c-cunning, I mean. _Horridly_ so. Brilliant and brave and _oh_...”

There was an awkward pause during which Crowley wished that he might have seen any one of the angels’ faces so that he may better gauge the situation, and then Gabriel dispelled the silence.

 _“_ It almost sounds as though you like him,” he said, his response a mix of a flat delivery with a hint of suspicion.

 _“_ No! No, I loathe him. Entirely!” Aziraphale laughed wildly, and Crowley winced. “I respect him his craft, or I would if I could respect demons. Which I cannot. Blegh, a _demon._ He—his kind—is incapable of earning my respect or any sort of affection.”

 _“_ _Outstanding._ See? You’ll be perfect Up There.”

Crowley fretted, desperately glancing around himself for—for _what?_ What could he possibly do to stop Aziraphale from leaving him? If he burst out like a loon, that would be it—for the both of them.

Spotting the window on the far side of the room, he wedged himself between the boxes, sliding it open even as it seemed diametrically opposed to bowing to his whims. The demon looked out into a dingy alley, but passers-by used it as another street, milling through at a decent volume.

 _“_ Oi! You there, with the hat!” Crowley hissed, hoping to attract the attention of any of the men walking through, each wearing a hat.

 _“_ Me?” One man stopped, touching a finger to his chest.

 _“_ When will I have to leave?” Aziraphale’s voice drifted in, resigned to his fate and—sad?, and Crowley’s heart lurched.

 _“_ _Yes,_ ” the demon hissed, aware that precious time slipped through his fingers as he slapped his hands down on the sill. “How would you like one hundred pounds?”

The man rolled his eyes and spat. “I’d love it, though I doubt you’ve got it.”

Crowley waved the bank note as though it were a flag, and the man’s eyes hungrily watched it whip back and forth in front of him. “Fifty right now, fifty once you’ve done what I want,” he said, and as the man stepped toward the window, the demon began to outline his plan.

* * *

 

 _“_ I will have to make arrangements here,” Aziraphale said with a false note of enthusiasm, and Crowley crept from the storage room, taking shelter behind a bookshelf and peeking around it as much as he dared.

 _His_ angel had his back to him, but he had his head bowed with his shoulders slumped, and a fresh wave of anger lapped over Crowley. Heaven really didn’t care a whit how any of them felt about _anything;_  certainly Hell didn’t either, but at least they didn’t try to come off as all Holier-Than-Thou about it.

 _“_ We’ll do that—don’t worry about it!” Gabriel dismissed his concern, and he looked around the shop, disinterest plain on his face. “It’s not like this is a difficult concept, Aziraphale. People come in, they buy books, they leave. C’mon.”

 _“_ I suppose that you’re right,” Aziraphale said wearily, and Crowley had begun to worry that the men—the number inflated once he had taken to shouting about payment for easy work—had simply taken the first installation of bank notes and scarpered.

The door to the shop swung open, bell dancing madly at the motion as several fairly coarse looking men poured inside, scurrying to different corners of the establishment even as Aziraphale straightened and fell into immediate protestation.

 _“_ Gentlemen—I am in the middle of a private matter, and I _must also_ direct your attention to the sign, which—”

“Can’t read,” the first man Crowley had spoken to replied, and the demon covered his mouth to stifle his laugh as Aziraphale whirred, at a loss for words.

 _“_ But—this—then I must inform you that you are in rather the wrong shop! _Do not_ touch that—please!” Aziraphale recalled his duty to be polite to potential customers, although Crowley could tell without seeing his face that the angel spoke through gritted teeth.

One man grabbed up an armful of books, and another leaned into a table which had not anticipated accommodating his weight and that of a pile of novels, promptly collapsing with a clatter and sending both man and tomes scattering across the floor.

 _“_ Look what you have done!” Aziraphale said, losing the tether to whatever patience he originally possessed.

 _“_ Give us all the coin you have and we’ll go,” the ringleader offered amiably, and Crowley noted the stiff set of Aziraphale's shoulders, his rigid arms, and his hands balled into fists at his sides.

 _Sorry, angel._ It was the best plan he could come up with at such short notice; hopefully Aziraphale would forgive him.

 _“_ As I have told you—I haven’t anything at all as I am currently not _in operation.”_

 _“_ Does...this sort of thing happen often?” Gabriel wondered, peering about himself as though he had somehow tripped into a show and was not entirely opposed to the idea of it.

 _“_ No, it—” Aziraphale began, but the man cut him off.

 _“_ We’ve been inspired by our good friend Mr. Crowley. He has all _sorts_ of wonderful ideas. Convincing orphans to turn to a life of crime ‘stead of the word of the Lord. Befouling holy water. Stealin’ from the orange girl when she’s not lookin’.”

 _“_ Oh, that’s—that’s right. He’s a scourge; each day it seems like he convinces another soul to do...to do bad,” Aziraphale said, rapidly catching on to the scheme, and Crowley sighed in relief, pressing his forehead to the wood of the shelf where he crouched, spectating.

 _“_ It’s a constant struggle to bring more into our flock, though, on account of...on account of...Ez...Ezra...”

 _“_ Aziraphale,” Aziraphale supplied, and the man snapped his fingers, pointing at the angel.

 _“_ Right. That’s the one. On account of this mysterious Aziraphale showing them the good path and all.”

 _“_ I heard it was him what got my sister to go to church last week,” the man sprawled on the floor said mournfully as he stood. “She’s never been—wouldn’t hear about how it’s a waste of time. Even gave over a shilling. A shilling!”

 _“_ Think of the ale that could’ve bought,” the first man tsked. “We’ve wasted enough time here, though. It’s time to pay the barber a visit.”

 _“_ No! Not the books! _Gentlemen!_ ” Aziraphale took a step forward but the men swept out, the one still supporting an armful of varied editions as the bell jingled to announce their abrupt departure.

 _“_ Well. That was something,” Gabriel hummed. “You deal with this every day?”

 _“_ Oh—oh yes. Every day he’s plotting something—something new. But if you are certain it’s best that I come with you...”

 _“_ I don’t know about that,” Gabriel pivoted on his heel to calculate as he viewed the slight disarray of the bookshop. “You seem to have it in control, and it appears a lot of work has gone into it.”

 _“_ Right. Obviously. Complex, er, plan and all that. My noose will soon be around his neck!” Aziraphale waggled his arm in a symbol of victory.

 _“_ Just what I want to hear! We’ll leave you to it, then!” Gabriel declared, and Sandalphon gave Aziraphale a good-natured punch on the arm, leaving the angel to rub at the spot afterward.

 _“_ Yes! Thank-you. I’ll...keep up the good work!” Aziraphale called with a wave as they left him behind, and he waited until they had passed in front of the glass window and disappeared from sight before sighing heavily. “Thank God they’ve gone...”

 _“_ Thank _God,_ angel? You sure about that?” Crowley slipped out from behind the shelf and Aziraphale spun to face him, a million emotions flitting across his face, preventing the demon from singling out just one.

 _“_ Crowley...” he said quietly, and Crowley cringed a little, spotting the muddied footprints and spilt books.

 _“_ My apologies as to the mess.”  He clicked his fingers together and the mud faded from the wood. He waved his hand next, fixing the broken leg on the table, and it stood up once more, books cascading back atop it like an accordion folding in on itself. “It was the best I could think of at such short notice.”

Aziraphale watched his shop return to its former pristine condition but said nothing, and the silence prickled at Crowley, compelled him to keep talking—to talk faster and a little louder, as though that might compensate for the lack of back-and-forth dialogue between them.

 _“_ Those books that he left with, they—he’s popped them round the back. I paid them; it was part of the deal. They should be untouched—it was just a show—I thought it’d fool the angels; they’re all so _gullible._ Wh—not that _you_ are, necessarily, only—”

Aziraphale drifted around the display toward him, and Crowley took a nervous step backward.

 _“_ Promise they’re there. Or...they _ought_ to be there. We can go check before you, y’know, ask for a pound of my flesh as payment, or whatever it is you do for punishment.”

 _“_ You made them leave me be.”

 _“_ I—oh,” Crowley said, relieved. For a moment, he half-thought the angel had been ready to swipe up some hidden weapon and bludgeon him with it for the chaos he had caused, no matter that it had been in order to _help_ him. “Right. Yeah. I did do that.”

Aziraphale hugged him, pressing his face into Crowley’s shoulder and squeezing him so tightly the demon half anticipated his spine to snap under the pressure.  The action surprised him more than it had a century and a half earlier, and he let out a little squeak of astonishment that he covered by clearing his throat.

 _“_ Y—Aziraphale—”

 _“_ An angel embracing you, I...I can’t imagine you _want_ it, but...”

 _Depends on the angel,_ Crowley thought, but bit down the words before they could escape his lips. “’S not really high on the list of things demons appreciate, but it happens from time to time,” he sniffed instead, even as every fibre of his body screamed that he ought to wrap himself around Aziraphale and never let him go.  Something like a Venus Flytrap. Clamp down—no escape.

 _“_ _You saved me,_ ” he whispered fervently into Crowley’s waistcoat, rattling the demon.

Aziraphale equated the notion of being dragged back to Heaven as equally perilous as any of the times that he had come close to discorporation. No—he thought it _worse—_ and why shouldn’t he? There would be paperwork to fill out and probably a lecture or two to sit through about carelessness and being wasteful on the job, but after that he’d return, nearly good as new.

A promotion slammed the door closed on Earth, and everything that went with it.

 _“_ Thank-you,” Aziraphale murmured, voice so low that Crowley nearly missed it, and the demon paused.

He held his hand hesitantly up. “Anything to thwart Heaven’s grand design,” he replied before resting his palm on the angel’s back, drawing him nearer as he closed his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All right. Notes!
> 
> -I moved Aziraphale's bookshop opening from 1800 to 1818 because I Do What I Want. So there! Also I wasn't exactly sure as to its layout, but the scriptbook implies that the shop is smaller in the past, which means at least some things have probably been changed around. So if you're reading and thinking "What? It totally doesn't look like that!" It does *here*. In this fic. So. Yeah!  
> -Did you know that boxes of chocolate weren't invented until 1849? And not done in heart formation until 1861? Not to mention chocolate was ground up by hand at this point, with a mortar and pestle. For real! At this time of my fic, there wasn't any of what I mentioned, nor was there a chocolate press (you know, smashing it up all automated style), milk chocolate, chocolate bars, or even the Cadbury company. It was mostly drunk at this point, and generally the people who hung about drinking chocolate in public places were louts! Reprobates! Scoundrels and the like. So maybe Gaiman didn't know chocolate done like this and given out like that wasn't a thing, or maybe he just did his little anachronism thing. Or MAYBE Crowley totally invented giving-your-sweetie-sweets-and-flowers. Maybe that? Maybe that.  
> -The flowers I mentioned in order were arbutus, yellow tulips, and jonquils. There are about a *million* different flower meanings, both then and now, and some have changed over time (like yellow tulips are basically just "hey! you're a cool friend!" flowers now). Here are some of the meanings for the flowers I used, though. Arbutus meant thee only do I love. Yellow tulip meant someone had a great smile, which I thought definitely suited our favourite li'l angel, but *also* stood in a more dagger-in-the-heart meaning for hopeless love. Finally, jonquils are what I said in the fic, ie, desire and wanting required love.  
> -Also I don't know if this came through very well, but I wanted to imply in the text that the flowers were there because they were what Crowley wanted. Sort of like the heart knows what it wants before the brain's ever cottoned on type of deal. That's why the girl was surprised to find them in her stock; they *weren't* there before! Crowley found them because he *expected* them to be there. Ta da!  
> -A volcano erupted in 1815 in Indonesia, leading to failed harvests and summers where there was literal ice and winter-like conditions all over the world--UK not being an exception to this. 1816 specifically was referred to with a slew of names, such as: The Year Without a Summer, the Poverty Year, and, totally my favourite no bias, Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death. Which is apparently the name of a post punk/indie rock band. Who'd have thought).
> 
> OK SO. As to this chapter. Wah! I warred with how to do this. I actually planned on having more, but I've had some comments that my chapters are too long and I've been told on other sites that people don't want to read long chapters. I didn't know; I don't really do a03 very much (as evidenced). This part alone clocks in at nearly 6k and I knew if I added in even one of the additional bits I planned, it would turn into a monstrous length. Also it's a bit rough trying to figure out what to do and where to end it the closer we get to the present, so I may have a bunch of years crammed into one chapter or shorter chapters but more rapidly one after the other? I don't know.
> 
> Regardless--the next chapter is gonna be a fucking DOOZY in terms of both emotion and also probably length. So I apologise ahead of time for the length of it, but I also warn you! Also I apologise that this probably isn't what people are looking for after such a long break, but I hope to do better next time. Stick with me! I'll do better in the next one. I promise.
> 
> I think that's it! Thanks for reading. See you around!


	13. 1898 AD & 1941 AD & 1967 AD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley sees a play (again!), visits a church, and has a conversation with an old friend.

_1898 AD_

Crowley slipped into the midst of the milling crowd, weaving in and out between people, throwing a look over his shoulder every now and again. He had been unable to shake the feeling that he had a pair of eyes centred _squarely_ on his back for months on end; even when alone he felt it, as though he were a mouse in a field with a hawk just above him, stretching down a hooked claw to snag him up and away before he could dart to safety.

The mental image made him glance over his shoulder again, satisfied that he did not see anything to give him pause, but wary that he _saw nothing to give him pause._ Trust in your instincts, they say. Who say? He couldn’t recall, but it seemed like good advice to follow.

Crowley stopped just inside the entrance to the building, stepping aside to allow people to flow naturally past him and drift in the direction of their seats. He fidgeted on the spot, putting his hands in his pockets before pulling them free, shuffling his feet on well-trod, ornately-designed carpeting as he stared out into the night, narrowing his eyes to sift through the strange faces to find one single, familiar one.

 _“_ Halloa, Crowley!”

The demon nearly leapt out of his skin at the angel’s cheerful greeting given so near to his ear. “Ah, for God’s—Satan’s— _Someone’s_ sake! Don’t _do_ that!”

 _“_ It would be impolite not to greet you,” Aziraphale tsked, tilting his head as he prised off first one glove and then the other. “Something the matter? If you aren’t feeling up to it, we can go. I _did_ have some reservations when you suggested it, but thought it best not to interfere—”

 _“_ What? No. What?” he repeated, baffled. “Why’d you think I wouldn’t want to see a play?”

 _“_ Not that you _wouldn’t,_ necessarily, only...” Aziraphale paused, looking toward the man who collected tickets. “The miracle play we viewed all those years ago was not met with delight, as I recall.”

 _“_ This isn’t one of those,” Crowley said dismissively, then hesitated. It wasn’t, was it? He hadn’t paid any attention at all as to what would be the entertainment; he learned millennia ago that Aziraphale was much easier to ask a favour from once he had been plied in _some_ manner, whether it be with a dazzling show, a fine bottle from a delicate vintage, or some pastry concocted by a master in the culinary crafts. Perhaps it was sneaky to weaken him in such a fashion, but he left Crowley little recourse.

And, anyway, Crowley was a demon. It was _expected—_ wasn’t it?

 _“_ It’s the opening for _Charlotte Corday,_ about—well, I suppose it’s quite evident what the play’s subject matter is.”

 _“_ Oh,” Crowley exhaled, relaxing. He had anticipated some great revelation to hit him like a heavy blow, and as Aziraphale scrutinised him, he shrugged. “I told you _then,_ angel; she already had the idea to do as she did before I came along. Are you curious to see how the play does it?”

 _“_ Yes, actually, I—”

 _“_ You _must be,_ given that you were sat in gaol for it,” Crowley interrupted, enjoying Aziraphale puffing up in indignation.

 _“_ I _wasn’t._ ”

 _“_ You _weren’t?_ ” Crowley asked, astonished as they made their way forward to have their ticket torn, and he touched his hand to his chin in mock bafflement. “Then...who was that I had crepes with…?”

 _“_ All right, yes, I was...” Aziraphale looked around himself, a flush creeping into his face as he lowered his voice, leaning closer to Crowley to whisper to the demon, “I was in gaol, _yes,_ but not the entire time during which the Revolution occurred!”

Herded deeper into the theatre house, the warmth from hundreds of bodies soothed Crowley as a theatre lad led them in the direction of their seats.

 _“_ Doesn’t it make you a little...nostalgic?”

 _“_ Hm?” Crowley caught the wistful expression on Aziraphale’s face, and the slight sigh he gave as he looked toward the empty stage while they snaked their way down the row past a few couples who had arrived prior. “How do you mean?”

 _“_ Oh. Well. I don’t know about _you,_ but I’ve been to all sorts of plays. It’s funny, how different things are now. They used to wear these masks, you know, to show emotion to the spectators,” Aziraphale held a hand up to his face in a mimicry of the mask before lowering it again as they took their seats, both removing their hats in the same sweeping motion. “We had wooden benches to sit on and we looked down in this theatre, with just the backdrop of trees—mountains!—or sky. I’m thinking of Aristophanes; you’d have liked his comedies.”

 _“_ Yeah?” Crowley stretched his legs out in front of him as much as he could, slumping down in his seat. He imagined he would have enjoyed nearly anything, if it meant he had a few extra moments spent with his angel.

 _“_ And you’ve seen the miracle plays. I think for my money it has always been Elizabethan theatre I like best.”

 _“_ So...Shakespeare,” Crowley said, tilting his head in order to look over his sunglasses at Aziraphale, who pointedly stared instead at the vacant stage. “That’s what you mean, isn’t it? That’s what you ought to say, then.”

 _“_ I didn’t say that—”

 _“_ But it’s what you _meant,_ ” Crowley pressed. “I wager that’s only ‘cause you met him and ensured he made a name for himself.”

 _“_ I didn’t do that—”

“You _did._ ”

 _“_ No, _you_ did,” Aziraphale countered.

 _“_ Yeah, well, I only did it so you’d be happy,” he grumbled, and when Aziraphale pried his attention from the stage and directed it instead toward him, Crowley instantly became _far_ more interested in the architecture near the ceiling, staring at the moulding even as he felt his face grow hotter.

 _“_ Hm. You may possibly have a point, it’s only...I can hardly be blamed for it. All the plays nowadays retread the same ground; you could go down the street and see someone putting on this or that penned by Shakespeare, or Goldsmith. Not that I’m not fond of _She Stoops to Conquer,_ but...”

 _“_ You want to see something new every now and again; it’s understandable,” Crowley shrugged. Possibly less understandable for someone as set in his ways as the angel, but it was a sentiment the demon could grasp. “You’ll have it with this. Who’s in it? Irving?”

Aziraphale frowned at him, waving the programme he had apparently purchased before seeking out Crowley. “You didn’t pay any attention at all when you bought the tickets, did you? Irving is in _Peter the Great_ at the moment. A shame indeed, as I hear it told; the reviews are apparently dismal, and Miss Terry is hardly given anything at all to do.”

 _“_ Did you send her flowers?”

 _“_ Of course. I sent them both flowers,” Aziraphale said, and as Crowley once more stared over his sunglasses at him, the angel gave a little wriggle of dismay in his seat. “What?”

 _“_ You sent _Henry Irving_ flowers?”

 _“_ I thought it would be nice!” he cried. “It _was_ nice to—to get flowers from you, when my shop opened. I do not know why he would feel any different simply because he’s a man.”

Crowley leaned over, plucking the programme out of the angel’s hands and ignoring his protestations as he thumbed through the pages. “I want to see who’s in this.”

 _“_ You could have asked me,” Aziraphale leaned back in his seat while maintaining his rigid posture, as though someone had swapped out his spine with an iron rod. “Or you could have looked at the advertisements. Or picked up a newspaper even once.”

 _“_ What’s the point? Don’t know how to read,” he murmured, smiling when he caught Aziraphale’s eye roll out of the corner of his eye. “Oh. Kyrle Bellew.”

 _“_ Baptised Harold, but you know how actors are with stage names.”

 _“_ Nothing wrong with picking something else out for yourself,” Crowley hummed to himself before closing the programmed and handing it back to the angel. “What’s he like?”

 _“_ Oh...you haven’t seen?”

 _“_ Nope,” Crowley tapped his fingers on the right arm of his seat, viewing the gathering audience with disinterest. “Lots of—of fighting and war’s been going on for the last few decades. Plenty for a demon to do, y’know.”

 _“_ Oh, yes, that...is true. Er. Well. He’s a bit...unorthodox. Put on _Antony and Cleopatra_ a few years ago—not typically done. _Hero and Leander,_ too. Oh, and then there was _Therese Raquin._ I’ve seen reviews of his work through the years; when he’s not sticking to traditional comedies, the critics turn negative, complain about the sexual nature of his productions. I suppose that’s just the way it is.”

 _“_ A bit like his father, then?”

 _“_ I do not know him.”

 _“_ A preacher,” Crowley said, pleased to watch the furrow appear upon Aziraphale’s brow at his response. “ _Fantastic_ fellow. Holy as anything, I suppose, but so _unsure_ of himself. Went on a pilgrimage, changed from Anglican to Catholic—”

 _“_ And what was it you were doing flitting around a man of God?” Aziraphale wondered suspiciously as Crowley sank back into his seat with a yawn.

 _“_ I didn’t have to do a _thing_ with him, really. It was the people _all around him_ that kept me busy—a kind man with a musical voice? Hair gone white far too early with striking features—angel, you should have seen the amount of women who crowded into the church to hear his sermons. I promise you they did not have _The Good Book_ on their minds as they listened to him lecture.”

 _“_ How pleasant.”

 _“_ He wanted to be an actor; he told me once, over late night brandies and cigars, that he’d tried his hand at it under Macready.”

Crowley recalled the evening well even through the haze of perhaps a few too many fingers of liquor, how the odd preacher relaxed back in his plush seat, running a hand unconsciously through his leonine locks, smiling and bouncing his leg to the giggles of his son, who perched in his lap. The child soon clambered down and hopped onto Crowley, convincing the demon to play pat-a-cake with him before eventually falling into a doze, clinging to Crowley’s waistcoat as the hour wound nearer to midnight.

 _“_ It’s not done, though. Preachers trodding the boards? It’s degrading to one in service to the Lord, and all that rot,” Crowley waved his hand near his temple, dismissing both the notion and the memory that surfaced. “I told him that there are, of course, _always_ ways to get around the rules—if you look carefully.”

 _“_ I am not at all surprised to hear that,” Aziraphale said dryly.

 _“_ It was _simple._ I told him—I said—‘ _Look._ They don’t want you acting, so what if you didn’t?’ If he let _other_ people go on the stage and portray the scenes while he read the lines down in the orchestra pit, well, that’s not _technically_ acting, is it? It’s lecturing. And lecturing is allowed in his line of work—in fact, it’s rather encouraged. So that’s what he did. _Hamlet_. Wish you’d’ve been there to see it—you would’ve liked it. What?”

Aziraphale’s expression had softened as the demon spoke, and by the end of his explanation, the angel beamed. “That was a _nice_ thing you did, Crowley.”

 _“_ Gah!” Crowley snarled, folding his arms to his chest and turning away from Aziraphale. “It _wasn’t._ It—I was flouting the church. Corrupting a man of the cloth. That’s _bad_ stuff, angel. The worst of the worst.”

 _“_ Of course,” Aziraphale agreed in his infuriating manner of not agreeing in the slightest as the lights dimmed, “I couldn’t agree more.”

* * *

 

 _“_ So. Where is it we are to eat? There is a little place not too far from here where the chef has been testing out new sauces on me. The last wasn’t...quite up to snuff, so I’m curious as to how the next will be.”

 _“_ No,” Crowley said, and as Aziraphale looked at him, puzzled over his flat dismissal, the demon fluttered his hands in front of him, struggling not to devolve into incoherent babbling. “I thought we could do with a walk. A stroll. A _strolling walk._ ”

 _“_ Now?” Aziraphale glanced around them as people filtered out and into waiting carriages. “At this hour?”

 _“_ Yeah. C’mon,” Crowley tipped his head towards the right, down the walkway and past the thinning crowd, away from the merry lights of the theatre house.

 _“_ And...then we’ll eat after-ward, will we?” Aziraphale mused hesitantly, and Crowley slouched in exasperation.

Crowley harboured doubts that Aziraphale would wish to eat with him after what the demon planned to do, but he could hardly _tell_ the angel that, could he?

 _“_ Yes! All night, if you like! _C’mon,_ angel.”

Aziraphale fell into step at his side, hands in his pockets and shoulders pulled up toward his ears, and he seemed to feel Crowley’s eyes on him, sending him a fluttering look up through his lashes. “How did you like the play? Did you find it accurate?”

Crowley snorted. “About as accurate as anything written a century after the fact. How’d you feel?”

 _“_ I thought it a nice way to spend the evening. Thank-you for inviting me, Crowley,” Aziraphale said earnestly, offering the demon a bright smile, and Crowley quickly looked away as a surge of guilt swept over him.

As they moved from the chatter of voices discussing the entertainment they had just witnessed, Crowley allowed his thoughts to wander, returning to a dreary day a couple decades in the past. Back to a collection of people fanned around a hole in the ground, to a coffin obscured with a multitude of wreaths and flowers, a coffin that seemed far too small to hold such an effervescent person. He had not anticipated that the actor would look—would _sound—_ so much like his father, and it had shaken the demon to watch him sweep across the stage.

Recalling that day forced him to confront the realisation that the angel was the only one to which Crowley could turn. No one else had been through the sifting years of time as he had, often witnessing the very same events. No one else would understand the weight that pressed down on him sometimes, the inescapable _loneliness—_ but.

Perhaps Aziraphale was different. Possibly he never thought of these things; possibly he never thought any further than what his next meal would be, and which book he would reach out to and curl up with late at night.

No, that wasn’t Aziraphale.

If Aziraphale ever felt the loneliness at all as Crowley did, even briefly, ever so _briefly,_ then what the demon planned to ask him would help the angel. Would help the _both_ of them, as a means of insurance.

 _“_ What is on your mind?” Aziraphale wondered, and Crowley exhaled.

 _“_ Ah...thinking about the assassination scene. Was wonderfully done, eh?”

 _“_ My sentiments exactly, although I have my doubts as to the tub containing any water at all,” Aziraphale laughed as though it was some marvellous joke, as though it was funny to imagine a man in full fleshing costume but submerged in water upon the stage, and Crowley half-imagined _anything_ could be amusing, provided he heard that light chuckle.

Affection welled up within him— _wretched_ affection. Affection Crowley could not speak about, could not act upon, affection he could only hold close to his heart, wistfully wondering what might be, were circumstances different. Wishing for what could be, if only _he_ was different.

 _“_ Are you certain about this?” Aziraphale spoke again, a crease appearing upon his brow as they stepped beneath a street lamp, the light illuminating and throwing the angel in sharper relief before they returned to the dim darkness. “It’s January, after-all. You must be _freezing._ ”

 _“_ I’m fine.”

 _“_ I can see you trembling,” Aziraphale tutted as they passed under the protective glow of another street lamp.

Crowley was surprised; he had not given any notice at all to the cold, instead chasing thought after thought like a hound after a hare, and at the angel’s words, the chill of winter swept over him like an icy wave, settling into his bones.

Aziraphale halted and Crowley swivelled back, his hands thrust deep into his pockets. It was foolish; he didn’t _have_ to feel cold at all, only he had so many threads seeking his attention that he could hardly focus on repelling the season’s effects, and—

 _“_ What are you doing?”

 _“_ Here—you can borrow this from me,” Aziraphale chirped, freeing his scarf from his neck and stepping nearer to Crowley, who recoiled as though he currently waved his arms and spouted quite a lot of gibberish instead.

 _“_ No.”

 _“_ Won’t this be _nice,_ ” Aziraphale hummed to himself as he reached up to wind the scarf around Crowley’s neck. “You haven’t got your other one—”

 _“_ It disintegrated several decades back, thank—well, whoever,” Crowley sniffed, turning his face away from Aziraphale’s.

 _“_ Oh,” Aziraphale paused and then finished his task, patting his hand upon the fabric, and Crowley certainly did _not_ melt in the residual warmth from the angel. “You ought to keep this one, then—for as long as you need it.”

 _“_ Angel— _no._ This is bad enough! It’s—it—the _pattern._ And it—it scratches! It does!”

 _“_ It’s wool, and it’s _lovely!_ ” Aziraphale argued.

 _“_ It’s an itchy eyesore!”

Aziraphale held his hand out. “Return it to me, then, so _I_ may be warm.”

 _“_ It—you—look, I’m trying to take you somewhere, so stop distracting me!” he hissed, turning on his heel at the smug smile Aziraphale flashed at his words.

Bloody angel. Bloody irritating, annoying, insufferable angel.

They reached the edge of the park, and Aziraphale rubbed anxiously at his arm, glancing up as an owl hooted in the tree that they passed. “You’ve...you wanted to meet here? At the rendezvous point? So late at night?”

 _“_ Scared?” _Of me._ Crowley didn’t say it, but the unspoken question seemed to him to be clear as anything, ringing loud as a church bell.

 _“_ _No,_ ” Aziraphale said firmly.

Ah. His clever angel had heard the meaning in his words, and his heart lifted a little, would have _flipped_ a little could it have managed it, and Aziraphale looked up quickly at him, caught his bottom lip between his teeth, and glanced away as they reached the duck pond.

 _“_ You have me rather worried—what must be spoken out here that can’t be said over a nice dinner?”

 _“_ It’s not that it can’t—” Crowley began, heated, and then glanced around himself, stepping closer. “There’re ears everywhere. Walls have ears; well, not walls. Trees have ears.”

Aziraphale frowned as Crowley picked up speed, turning to nervousness as the subject which he wished to broach loomed large. “Ducks have ears. Do ducks have ears? Must do. That’s how they hear other ducks.”

 _“_ Crowley...what is your point?” the angel asked, snipping off what looked to have been a derailed train of thought, and Crowley plucked a folded piece of paper from his pocket, holding it between two fingers like a cigarette as he offered it to Aziraphale.

Aziraphale opened it, squinting in the dark, and Crowley realised he had momentarily forgotten that his companion did not have the same advantages in vision as he did. The angel shuffled a couple steps to the right, holding the paper closer to his eyes, and then crumpled it in his hand, shuffling back quicker to the left to return to the demon’s side.

 _“_ No. Absolutely not! Are you _mad?_ Not in a—not in a _million years,_ Crowley!”

“And what about five thousand, give or take a few centuries?”

 _“_ This isn’t _funny;_ this isn’t a joke to me at all,” Aziraphale drew nearer, hand still stiffened into a fist. Something in his face eased into worry as he looked at Crowley, and the demon turned his attention toward the inky-black water, finding it difficult not to return the angel’s gaze. “I’m not offering you the means to your destruction.”

 _“_ This isn’t _that,_ ” Crowley barked, giving a sweep over both his shoulders, half-expecting winking eyes to be lurking in the bushes or up in the trees. Could he have been followed? It was possible. Anything was possible. “It’s insurance.  For an emergency.”

 _“_ You say that to me, and then—and then twenty years down the line, I hear that you’ve turned yourself into a puddle of goo? I won’t do it; I _cannot_ do it.”

 _“_ That sort of thing has never once crossed my mind,” Crowley waved his hand dismissively, and Aziraphale stared at him as though he could nearly see through him. “What?”

 _“_ Four hundred and sixty-six years ago.”

 _“_ Gh... _what?_ ” Crowley repeated.

 _“_ You, in that—in that cage. After Jehanne. What were you doing up there?”

 _“_ Demonic stuff,” Crowley blurted, flustered. He remembered the year? Could throw it out so easily, as though he had written it down somewhere and tucked it neatly into his pocket?

 _“_ I put that behind me, you know. I remember it—I find it hard to forget much of anything—but I set it aside. I told myself if you had gone and done it, _truly_ done something to be discorporated, then _fine_ . It was your own decision. You’d at least have the opportunity to come back. Possibly,” Aziraphale paused. “I wouldn’t know how it works. I am certain it’s a bureaucratic _nightmare,_ but that isn’t—that isn’t the end of things. If I give you holy water—you cannot come back from it. There’s no regret, there’s no changing your mind. There’s _nothing,_ and I will _not_ be used as a pawn in that sort of game.”

 _“_ I’ve told you, angel—it isn’t for that!”

 _“_ I cannot help you,” Aziraphale said firmly—stubbornly—and Crowley could read in the line of his shoulders and the set of his jaw that he had made up his mind.

Made up his mind so quickly, without even allowing Crowley the opportunity to explain himself!

 _“_ I have done _so much_ for you, angel!” Crowley hissed, cutting off the remaining space between them. “Can’t you do one _bloody_ thing for me? After all these years?”

Aziraphale glanced down to the side, blinking quickly as he echoed Crowley’s sentiment. “You’ve done so much for me...can’t I do one thing for you...”

The same sentiment that Aziraphale clicked onto reached the demon seconds later, and he hastily held up his hands. “Wait. Aziraphale— _wait._ ”

 _“_ So you didn’t do any of those nice things because you...” Aziraphale’s voice wobbled on the last word and he stopped, closing his eyes for a moment. He took in a steadying breath and continued in a more level tone as Crowley watched him, “You only did those things for me in order to—to build up credit? Credit enough to cash in, to ask me for a boon?”

 _“_ Of course I didn’t! Do you—d’you think I’d bring you almonds? Fix your clothes? Pull you out of a monastery and away from Viking swords for a _boon?_ Fuck’s sake—if I’d wanted to, I could have just snagged a bottle there and not ever bothered at all with you, if that’d been my plan from the beginning.”

 _“_ Then why did you? Why have you done all these things, if you didn’t want anything from me?” Aziraphale asked, and Crowley froze.

Well, fuck.

Crowley could hardly admit the truth; everything about the evening had taken a turn southward, and he could feel the opportunity to salvage it slipping through his fingers with each passing second. Lying would be worse—would it be worse? It certainly seemed as though it would be, to suddenly retract what he had just said.

 _“_ It—wh—don’t _worry_ about any of that! Just fetch it for me, and I won’t speak of it any more.”

Aziraphale bobbed on his feet, throwing a fearful glance up to the twinkling stars before meeting Crowley’s eyes again. “I cannot, even if I wished to do so. Do you know what trouble I’d be in if...if they knew I’d been fraternising?”

Anger seared through Crowley at Aziraphale’s question, and—no.

He _wanted_ it to be anger, but he realised that the angel’s words had hurt him, left him reeling instead.

 _“_ _Fraternising?_ ” Crowley spat.

 _“_ Well, whatever you wish to call it,” he returned coolly.

Fraternising.

All the years. The decades. The centuries. The _millennia._ The angel couldn’t couch it in softer terms; he had chosen a word that made it sound—made it sound illicit. Of course it was—to their respective sides. But it shouldn’t be to _Aziraphale!_

All the mornings, afternoons, and evenings winnowed away in his presence. More time spent together than any mortal ever possesses, and Aziraphale wiped it all away, reduced it down to Fraternisation.

 _“_ I have lots of other people to fraternise with, angel,” Crowley clenched his hand into a fist at his side.

 _“_ Of course you do,” Aziraphale swivelled, indicating his decision to leave, and it was there that Crowley’s anger made a belated appearance.

 _“_ I don’t need you!” he shouted toward the angel’s back, and Aziraphale whirled upon him.

 _“_ Well—and the feeling is mutual, obviously!” he snapped, ineffectively hurling the piece of paper into the pond as hard as he could before stomping past a bush, slapping at it in his irritation.

 _“_ I have _never_ needed you!” Crowly screamed, startling two night-birds from their perch in the tree next to him, and he turned to avoid having to watch the angel storm away.

He would have done _anything_ for Aziraphale—anything the angel requested of him, he would have offered if he could, and if he couldn’t, he would have at least _tried._

Aziraphale wouldn’t even listen to him, wouldn’t even entertain his plea.

Worse still was the ‘fraternisation’ bit. Aziraphale’s rejections, no matter the subject, had become rather old hat to Crowley; he would have sulked and been tetchy about it for a few months, perhaps a year, but he would have shrugged his shoulders and come to acknowledge that was simply the little dance they performed in all walks of life.

To be shunted down, however, reversed and relegated to their old positions after everything they had seen and done together—that had _wounded_ him, and he continued to nurse that curious ache that only Aziraphale could summon.

_Angel, why did you—_

Absentmindedly he reached a hand up to his throat, feeling at the fabric gifted to him only moments earlier, and his eyes stung.

From the cold, of course.

* * *

 

_1941 AD_

Crowley tilted his head back, looking up into the sky. It was weird, wasn’t it, being in London and it _so dark?_ Just black on black on black. Street lamps smothered, car lights covered. It made the city seem so small. Or, rather, it made the demon think of the past—and Crowley wished to avoid that, if he could. Once he got going he could hardly stop, and then—whoop!—there he was back in the garden, replaying his shuffle nearer to the celestial being as the rain began, thinking of that tentative look, the cautious smile.

From the angel he hadn’t spoken to in nearly half a century. Sure. Why not revisit those memories? Why not dwell over them, why not _wallow_ in them?

Didn’t hurt at all.

He was _above_ that; he was a _demon._ He didn’t _get_ his feelings hurt, and certainly not by someone he—from someone who annoyed him greatly, a persistent thorn in his side.

So why was he there, then?

Crowley found it advantageous to have a finger in all the pies. So to speak. Not literally. Pies were messy. A finger in all the _metaphorical_ pies, rather. Keep an eye on the Nazis, send back some embellished reports to Hell—it worked itself out, really. Humans had a real knack for making things truly awful, when they put their minds to it.

When he heard a rumour—a whiff of a rumour, to be honest—he had only paid attention to it out of _curiosity._ A professional curiosity, of course. Monitoring something that may possibly jam a spanner in _his_ works—nothing more.

A fool getting himself killed by Nazis wasn’t anything new; they’d been doing quite a lot of that. Killing, both Fools and Otherwise. Crowley couldn’t swoop in and save anyone, and anyway he’d have rather a difficult time explaining it if he did.

The ‘dealer in rare tomes’ gave him pause, but it wasn’t as though only _one_ person could hold the position at a time.

 _“_ I’ve an eye for first editions,” Crowley’s Man on the Inside had said when he reported his latest information to the demon, scratching at his temple in puzzlement. “He’s a right fussy one, though; when I made inquiries, he damn near chased me out of his shop, glaring at me until I crossed the street.”

Crowley had put his face flat to the surface of his desk and groaned a groan that he believed he had held within himself for a hair under six millennia.

And now he stood outside the church, hands in his pockets as he rocked on his heels, sifting through the emotion that hit him as he lurked. The maliciousness, the cruelty—he expected it. It rolled off the building in bursts, a sort of sadistic glee at the misery of others; that wasn’t _exactly_ what one wanted in a place of worship, was it?

He had the right place then—Satan he _hoped_ he had the right place, or else more questions would be raised than he had answers.

Anyway. He _expected_ all that, but he did not anticipate that other feeling. What memory did it dredge up from the depths?

_1316._

The famine.

It was despair.

The demon recalled it; he could hardly step anywhere at all without sinking into it, like putting his foot in a squishy bit of loam. Never thought it would get better, never thought they’d rise up out of the hole, never thought they’d see the light at the end of the tunnel, and so forth and so on.

It was thick, it was heavy, it was hopeless and it—it couldn’t be the Nazis.

It was Aziraphale.

Crowley had known him for, well, as long as anything had been worth remembering, but he had never felt _despair_ from the angel. Everything they had seen together, everything they had done—even with the plague, with the tears shed in a drunken haze, he hadn’t slipped—why had Aziraphale suddenly chosen to give up?

He could have crept away easily! If it’s a handful of Nazis, drop a wooden beam on their heads. Bonk—just like that! They take an unscheduled nap, he steps carefully around their bodies; simple! If he faced down a whole fleet, he could have turned their guns to bananas or something similar.

_Why had he suddenly chosen to give up?_

Crowley thrust the heavy doors open, wincing slightly as they creaked and clattered to raise the dead. Well, he always enjoyed making an entrance.

 _Best take advantage of it,_ he thought, and he squared his shoulders and stepped forward with a far greater projection of confidence than he currently held in his possession.

Round the corner he went, hopping along. Oh, it had been so _long_ since he last stepped foot in a church, and he had forgotten in the interim how uncomfortable it felt with every footfall that led him deeper into the sanctum.

 _“_ Sorry—consecrated ground,” he said by way of a hullo, pleased when all eyes swivelled to mark his jaunty entrance. “Oh! It’s like being at the beach...in bare feet!”

The despair fell away from Aziraphale like a person slipping a cloak from their shoulders to the ground, and then he stooped to collect it all up again, watching suspiciously as Crowley danced nearer to him.

 _“_ What are _you_ doing here?” he said, tone not exactly what Crowley may have wished. The demon preferred a grateful embrace, would have accepted praise, if he could get it, but wariness—nah, he could leave the wariness behind.

 _“_ Thought it’d be a good time to come say my prayers,” Crowley drawled sarcastically, rolling his eyes. “What d’you _think_ I’m doing? Stopping _you_ from getting into trouble!”

Aziraphale instantly looked back at the Nazis, indignation tripping across his features as he put two and two together and arrived at four. Problem _was_ that the answer didn’t happen to be four: life could be funny that way, on occasion.

 _“_ No, they’ve nothing at all to do with me,” Crowley interrupted before Aziraphale could wind up into a complaint. He wished he had a big tag to wear on his jacket, something that went ‘not me’ or ‘I didn’t have a thing to do with it, really, I _swear_ ’, though the last one seemed a bit unwieldy. He’d have to work on it.

Looking at Aziraphale, the demon was pleased that nothing had changed. Not a reference to the clothes—although that, too, largely escaped time’s touch. No—the angel met Crowley’s gaze with a mixture of ‘ _you’re_ here?’ but stirred in amongst an overwhelming portion of ‘I don’t care how you fix this but _for the love of Somebody—fix this!’_

 _“_ Mr. Anthony J. Crowley. Your fame precedes you.”

Crowley wheeled around on the spot, lip lifting automatically in disgust. Certainly it was _good_ to be known in evil circles, but sometimes the demon thought there ought to be a line somewhere.

 _“_ Anthony…?” Aziraphale wondered, and Crowley’s stomach dropped as he completed his circle, facing the angel once more.

 _“_ You don’t like it?” Why should he care? _Why_ did he always _care?_

 _“_ No, no. I didn’t say that. I’ll get used to it,” Aziraphale replied easily, casually, while Crowley swam in the meaning of the words.

He’ll get used to it? Did that mean they would resume their little—little—whatever it was that they did? One would hardly need to ‘get used to’ something if they had no plans to interact with it in the future—right?

The woman babbled something at him about death—standard threat, accompanied with mandatory pointed gun in order to lend support to her argument—but as Crowley tread back and forth on the carpet, he paid attention only to the angel.

 _“_ What does the ‘J’ stand for?”

All that time apart, all those years, and he fixated on the initial? “It’s just a ‘J’, really,” he stammered, not anticipating needing to have an answer for an initial he had inserted one day on a whim. Humans loved that, the initial business. Gave off an aura of mystery, or prestige. The more initials you had, the better. Look at that one fellow, J. R. R. Tolkien. He had _three_ of ‘em, and sold a shedload of his books. The proof was clearly in the pudding.

Crowley noted a container of water, out and simply waiting for the taking, and he hopped a bit on the spot, partially out of the pain the church caused him, partially out of the indignation that all holy spots had it sat like so, simply available for any who wished to partake. “It’s left there, like that? No one round to stop you?”

Aziraphale followed his line of sight and frowned heavily, but before he could speak, one of the Nazis beat him to it.

 _“_ This is growing to be ridiculous—get rid of them.”

 _“_ Ah—ah ah!” Crowley did a bit of a jig where he stood, tilting toward a pew for support as he leaned into it. “In a minute, a German bomber will drop a bomb that ought to land right...well...here. Things’ll get a bit messy after-that—they tend to do, involving a bomb and all. You humans are fond of living; there’s time for you if you go. Now.”

 _“_ There are no bombs scheduled to land anywhere near here,” one of the Nazi men scoffed, and Crowley began his shuffle again, finding it too painful to stay slouched against the wood.

 _“_ Right. Suppose it would take something like a last-minute demonic intervention to throw them off track,” he said, pressing emphasis into his words. Aziraphale looked at him—did he get it? He got it. Or did he? Sometimes Crowley was certain the angel could see directly through him without needing to utter a word, and yet that couldn’t possibly be true, as he would have been kissed—or thoroughly chastised— _centuries_ ago.

 _“_ And if, in thirty seconds, a bomb does land here, it would take a real miracle for my friend and I to _survive_ it,” Crowley stepped forward, doing everything short of winking repeatedly at Aziraphale as he spoke. Wouldn’t help given the shaded spectacles, but it would make him feel a bit better as he delivered the message.

“A—a real miracle,” Aziraphale said with a slight nod.

Good. He got it.

Or _did_ he? They needed some sort of code, some sort of wrist-tapping, finger-snapping signal to alert the other to the need for emergency assistance. He could hum ‘In the Mood’ and that would—no, too recent. ‘The Tuner’s Oppor-Tuner-Ty’? It’d go far to grab the angel’s attention, certainly.

 _“_ Kill them; they are very irritating,” decreed Nazi Number Two, and Crowley supposed that was that.

He _had_ warned them, which was better than they deserved, really, given that they had planned to murder Aziraphale and walk away with a bag of the angel’s beloved books. He pointed up at the whistling not unlike a kettle set to boil, contenting himself with the pleasure of a job well done as he shut his eyes.

This was it, then. He hadn’t a hope of being able to shield the both of them; he couldn’t even shield Aziraphale, if it came down to it, and he would keep the angel safe over himself any day of the week. Crowley had to depend on him, had to trust that he understood, had to believe that he would act as the demon hoped he would.

The ground trembled as if in the throes of an earthquake, and the ceiling collapsed in a roar. Splintered wood and twisted metal snapped and clattered all around him—all _around_ him, but not _on_ him—forming a halo of debris around where he rested against the pew.

He had put his—life—his body—corporation!— _whatever_ into Aziraphale’s hands, hoping that Aziraphale would save him. The last time they spoke ended in argument, severed their talks for decades, but even so—Aziraphale _saved_ him.

His heart leapt, and Aziraphale glanced in his direction, removing his hat with a nervous little laugh. “Not the...the best of circumstances under which to meet, but—even so—Crowley...”

 _“_ Don’t,” Crowley snipped neatly, removing his glasses to wipe the dust away.

 _“_ That was an awfully nice thing you did.”

 _“_ Shut up,” he snapped, replacing his glasses but nursing a flame of pleasure at the praise. Was it at the praise? No.

It was at seeing the angel again. It was the years beginning to roll away as though they had never elapsed. They would need to talk, of course, but for the moment they shared the same space in amiable silence.

 _“_ Oh the books! Oh, I forgot _all_ the books!” Aziraphale fretted, hand fluttering to his head, turning this way and that in his own cleared out spot of rubble, and Crowley rose, stepping past him and prying the bag from the deceased Nazi’s hand as the angel continued. “Oh, they’ll all be blown to...”

 _“_ Little demonic miracle of my own,” Crowley said as he placed the satchel into Aziraphale’s hand, their fingertips brushing together as the angel wavered. “Care for a lift?”

He threw the offer out casually, walking away before he caught the angel’s expression or answer. Best to be on the move if rejected; he—

 _“_ Yes, I...I would like that. Very much,” Aziraphale said quietly, and then he caught up to Crowley’s side, peering so intently at the demon that Crowley drew his knuckles to his cheek.

 _“_ Something on my face? Blood?”

 _“_ No, no—nothing on your face,” Aziraphale murmured, and they crossed the threshold of the ruined church together.

* * *

 

 _“_ What is it that we—that we ought to do?”

 _“_ That’s a tricky one,” Crowley hummed, tapping his thumbs against the wheel. “Killed some Nazis. That’d probably go good in a report for you. Bombed a church, though. They _love_ that in Hell. Possibly a draw. How _unfortunate._ ”

 _“_ No, I meant...where to—where to go,” Aziraphale gestured in the darkness, the black of night heavier still, somehow, with the knowledge that people huddled in buildings nearby, buildings that were hard to spot until one pulled nearer to them.

 _“_ Best to get out of London for awhile; the bombing isn’t about to stop.”

Aziraphale looked uselessly out the window, reflection faint but visible to the demon. “I should have handled your...request better,” he said softly, pressing his forehead to the glass. “We were friends...”

The rest of Aziraphale’s sentence faded out as Crowley focused on that word. _Were._ We _were_ friends. He had let it pass the first time, on the pirate ship, but he wouldn’t allow it to slip by without comment a second go round.

Crowley ceased watching the road to direct his attention—briefly!—to the angel, and Aziraphale turned to meet his gaze, weariness drawing at his features, his eyes sad—so _sad!_ Crowley hadn’t noticed during the chaos in the church; _how_ had he not noticed?

 _“_ In the church, once they revealed they had tricked...they had tricked this foolish principality...” he smiled bitterly, fiddling at the bottom of his waistcoat with that common, restless energy Crowley had long ago noticed and catalogued into his memory, “I saw that I’d grown reckless. There is a little voice in the back of my head that tells me that...no matter how _badly_ I bungle something, you’ll always be there to pluck me out again. Back there, though, as they revealed what they meant to do to me, I realised that I had made a mistake that couldn’t be undone.”

 _“_ Nah, most things can be undone,” Crowley replied, tightening his hands on the wheel. Of _course_ Aziraphale had noticed all the times that Crowley appeared, no matter how coincidental he had tried to make it seem. _Of bloody_ **_course._ **

_“_ Not...us, what I said—what I did.”

Crowley paused for a minute and pulled the car to a stop.

Aziraphale sighed. “Do you want me to get out?”

The angel always had a difficult time hiding his emotions—another thing that Crowley had carefully observed over the stretch of what felt like endless millennia—and here he faltered, sinking as he fumbled blindly to find the door handle in the night.

Crowley flung himself toward Aziraphale, gripping his arm for a moment to halt him. The angel jumped beneath his grasp but fell still at his touch. “ _No,_ angel. I wanted—I had to say something. To you. Thought it better not to drive into a hole in the road whilst I’m making my point.”

Aziraphale faced him again, and Crowley slouched back in his seat. “I—back at the church—ngk...” The demon drummed his hand against the wheel arhythmically. “That is to say. Angel. Right! _Angel._ ”

 _“_ I’m afraid you aren’t making much sense at the moment, Crowley,” Aziraphale frowned, puzzled.

 _“_ Demon,” Crowley touched a hand to his chest, and the angel sat up a little straighter in the seat, bafflement turning instantly to concern.

 _“_ Did a piece of the building strike your head? Oh, _Crowley—_ you ought to have said something. Let me look—”

 _“_ No! Aziraphale!” Crowley peevishly ducked away from the angel’s seeking hand. “Our Agreement! Foiling one another so that neither Heaven nor Hell pulls ahead. Could hardly let that fall apart, could I? No more angel? Why, I’d—I’d—just think of all the bedlam I’d cause down here, on my own, with no one thwarting my wiles.”

 _“_ They would simply replace me, you know,” Aziraphale replied, some of his old primness returning in order to lecture the demon on something he considered he Ought to Know. “Or pop me down once more in a decade or so after the paperwork had been properly filed.”

 _“_ A decade’s _plenty_ of time.”

 _“_ Mmm,” Aziraphale said by way of response, unconvinced as Crowley started the car and pulled it back into motion.

 _“_ And, y’know, we’re friends. Not we’re as in we were. We’re as in _we are._ Continue to be. _Still._ ”

He glanced at Aziraphale to gauge his reaction, but the angel had tilted his head back toward the window.

It was dark, but Crowley could see his smile.

They’d been fools for decades, avoiding one another, but it didn’t matter now. The years slipped away like pages tearing from a calendar, and when Crowley realised that the angel continued to like him, continued to consider him _friend_ at least, his heart soared.

Strangely, Aziraphale’s smile widened.

They returned to silence, but for the first time in decades, Crowley felt comfortable. He didn’t need to speak, didn’t need to babble about this or that, desperate to fill the quiet. Aziraphale wouldn’t leave—at least not right away—and that was enough.

 _“_ Y’know...I wasn’t certain you’d understand me,” Crowley said, finally deciding he ought to segue into _some_ sort of a conversation. “In the church. With the bomb. Not that you aren’t clever—you’re _wickedly_ intelligent, only you had so much on your mind, the books, the Nazis...me...possibly you’d overlook it.”

Aziraphale did not respond, and Crowley scratched at his neck. The angel couldn’t be sulking, not after their talk, and when the demon looked over, he spotted Aziraphale slouched in the seat.

 _“‘_ Too much to see, too much to do’ to sleep, eh?” He scoffed, rolling his eyes, but entertained a burst of affection as he released the wheel, certain the car would continue as it ought and not, say, jump the kerb and provide a new doorway into some poor family’s home.

The angel must be exhausted; it was no small feat keeping an entire building from crumbling onto their heads, after-all, and Crowley knelt on his seat, facing the back of the vehicle as he began to fish around. He found a long jacket that had fallen out of fashion some twenty-odd years earlier and swivelled, tucking the coat over Aziraphale.

He hesitated, then brushed his fingers against the angel’s cheek, queueing up a thousand excuses why he had done so should the angel suddenly wake. Reluctantly he tore his attention from Aziraphale’s face, pressed into his shoulder and smoothed free of worry and stress, and applied it back to the road.

 _“_ Crowley…”

 _“_ Yeah?” Crowley whipped his head instantly at the sound of Aziraphale’s voice but found him slumped just as before, and he smiled with a bit of pride at the realisation that the angel slept but thought of him—thought of _him._

God—Satan—Whoever.

He had _missed_ his angel.

* * *

 

_1967 AD_

_Meet in second place. Must speak on previously discussed subject._

Crowley burnt the note as soon as he received it, pressed into his hands by an altogether nervous man who requested the demon forget he had ever been there. These types of clandestine notes suited Aziraphale; Crowley could tell it reminded him of the days of frequent telegrams, nestled right between the eras of long letters and phone calls. The angel had fallen out of step somewhere along the line and had never quite found his footing again.

Still. Didn’t matter.

Crowley wouldn’t be going. He really _would_ forget the man had ever come calling; or, rather, he would pretend to, as his memory spanned a little better than that of a goldfish.

He had _business._ Stuff to do. Etc.

* * *

 

Crowley settled into the seat of his Bentley, pressing his fingers to his eyes behind his glasses, and felt rather than saw that he had been joined without warning.

 _“_ Aziraphale! Good to see you!” he said. It was, technically, _always_ good to see Aziraphale, in his mind. A sliding scale of good, however—this time it fell rather near to the bottom of just such a scale, given that the angel would no doubt want to speak his mind while Crowley attempted to avoid him without _seeming_ to do so.

 _“_ You never came.”

 _“_ Well, you hadn’t written a time,” Crowley relaxed, catching Aziraphale purse his lips in disapproval.

 _“_ You know that if there isn’t a time, that means to come at once.”

 _“_ It slipped my mind. I’m _very_ busy, you know. Demon-about-town and all that,” Crowley waved his hand limply in the air, and Aziraphale glanced at him out of the corner of his eye.

 _“_ Is it to do with holy water, by chance?”

 _“_ Nuh...it...holy water? That old chestnut?” Crowley tried out a fake laugh, didn’t quite like it, and found it fell flatter still with the angel, whose lips twitched downward.

 _“_ I know what you’re doing. Or what you plan to do. Crowley, if I asked you to—to forget it, to walk away, to cancel everything—would you? If I asked you...would you do it?”

Crowley hissed out in frustration, covering his face with both hands for a moment before lowering them. “I came to you, remember. I came _to you_ all that time ago. You refused. I need it, angel, and if you won’t help me, I’ll have to go elsewhere.”

 _“_ But it is _dangerous,_ ” Aziraphale wheedled.

 _“_ Yeah, I’m aware that if I get it on me, I’ll—”

 _“_ Crowley, you aren’t _listening_ to me. I am not speaking about the _properties_ the water has and the damage it inflicts upon demons. I am _speaking_ about the direct danger it has to one _specific_ demon: you. It is a trap.”

Crowley paused, watching Aziraphale fidget. “How do you know?”

 _“_ I do pay attention. Will you trust me and forget the whole venture?”

Crowley gave a tiny shake of his head and Aziraphale shut his eyes, inhaling deeply and holding his breath for a moment before exhaling and retrieving a Thermos flask he had tucked to his side.

 _“_ What is that?”

 _“_ Tartan, and don’t even start in about it.”

 _“_ No, I _know_ what bloody tartan is—I meant what’s _in_ it. In—in the flask,” Crowley said, sitting up in the seat as Aziraphale cradled it nearer to his chest, hesitant, almost protectively.

 _“_ It contains what...what you wanted from me,” Aziraphale looked down at it and then up at Crowley again, worry creasing his brow, and the demon curled a hand to his chest.

 _“_ Why did you decide to bring it now?”

 _“_ To keep you from making a mistake,” Aziraphale said simply, but he directed his gaze elsewhere, eyes darting round as though seeking some placeholder to hold his attention.

_A lie, then._

_“_ What is the real reason?” Crowley asked, and when Aziraphale began in a nettled defence of himself, the demon held up a finger and silenced him easily. “The _real_ reason, Aziraphale.”

 _“_ Well, it _is_ true that it isn’t safe for you to be out seeking this,” Aziraphale said, giving in to a pout for a moment before recomposing himself. “But...I thought about what you said. At Jehanne’s—whenever they burnt that poor girl.”

 _“_ And what did I say?” Crowley sniffed suspiciously, watching Aziraphale tap his fingers lightly atop the flask.

 _“_ That you were on your own side. I’ve given it some thought, now and then, over the past few decades, and...what if you weren’t? On your own side, I mean?”

Crowley blinked. “That’s—what are you saying, exactly? Heaven isn’t going to want me, and I’m fairly certain Hell doesn’t really like me.”

 _“_ You are always preventing some catastrophic thing from happening to me, always around when it’s most needed, most appreciated, always...” Aziraphale trailed off and suddenly thrust the Thermos at Crowley. “It doesn’t have to be _your_ own side. It can be _our_ own side. If—if you like. If you want.”

The demon slowly took the container, Aziraphale’s hasty words of warning to be careful falling on his ears like distant buzzing as he held it reverently. The plans, the careful constructions, the clandestine meetings, and here it was—right in his hands, given up with no effort at all.

 _“_ Our own side?” he said, realising _someone_ ought to say something as the silence had stretched on to an uncomfortable degree, and even in the slight darkness he could see the angel’s blush spill across his cheeks.

 _“_ Can either of us pretend as though we haven’t been operating outside of the lines for—for some time now? Whether we admit it or not doesn’t make it any less true, and— _why_ have you got that insufferable grin on your face?”

 _“_ _Because!_ ” Crowley crowed, watching Aziraphale pinch at the bridge of his nose. “Usually I’m the one making all the sense.”

 _“_ Oh, now, _hardly._ ”

 _“_ Hardly! I only made the proposition five hundred years ago.”

 _“_ You didn’t even! You had a _tantrum_ five hundred years ago; I—no, I don’t have the time for petty quibbling,” Aziraphale held his hands up, stepping into the role of better person. Better celestial being.

 _“_ Time is the one thing we _do_ have, angel,” Crowley countered, and Aziraphale tipped his head slightly in acknowledgement of the truth of the statement.

 _“_ You must promise me that you will _only_ use this in—in case of emergency. That is what you requested it for, and that is why I give it to you now. Not for anything else, Crowley. I mean it.”

 _“_ Yeah, sure, I promise and all that,” Crowley replied flippantly—he could hardly be _sincere,_ could he—and Aziraphale frowned. “But...you trust the word of a demon?”

 _“_ No,” the angel replied, and an instant spike of hurt lodged itself there, just between his ribs somewhere near to his heart before Aziraphale continued, “I trust _you._ ”

 _“_ Oh. That’s...” Crowley floundered. What could he say to the angel? He didn’t want to be a soppy mess—he _couldn’t_ be a soppy mess; it was beyond him, and Aziraphale would never believe such a display. “Do you—d’you want to come with me, then?”

A brief glimpse of panic flashed across the angel’s face. “I don’t—I wished to give you the canister, that’s all. Oh, don’t look so disappointed. Perhaps one day we could...I don’t know. Go for a picnic. Dine at the Ritz.”

 _“_ Anywhere you like, angel. Just say the word.” He was desperate to find the magical combination of words, the perfect phrase to convince the angel to agree to him— _to get the angel to stay._

Aziraphale hesitated, closing his hand against his thigh. “You go too fast for me, Crowley,” he swallowed, and as he climbed out of the Bentley, he turned back to face the demon. “The world would be so much smaller without you in it. Please don’t...don’t ever forget that.”

Shutting the door, Aziraphale offered the demon a lingering, indecipherable look before crossing the street, and Crowley watched him until he turned a corner and disappeared from sight.

 _“_ Two steps forward, one step back?” Crowley whispered to himself, and he cradled the container in his hands.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! Notes:
> 
> -She Stoops to Conquer is HILARIOUS; please go read it.  
> -Ellen Terry and Henry Irving were a legendary acting partnership in the 19th century and well-known when apart, too. Rumoured to have been romantically connected; I've read some of her memoirs and I believe it (not to mention she herself said they were).  
> -Kyrle Bellew was a famous actor for whom the term "matinee idol" was coined. In the 1880s, he was so popular that thousands clogged the streets in New York City after his last performance before heading back to England. He was often dragged by the press--along with his acting partner, Cora Brown Potter--for the sexual aspects of their plays. He acted with Ellen and Henry when they first joined forces in 1878 (Hamlet) and again in 1899 (Robespierre). He wrote Charlotte Corday and performed it as written here. If you want to know more, please message me on Tumblr or Twitter (same name as here). I LOVE talking about him and am currently writing a book about him with my partner.  
> -J. C. M. Bellew is exactly how I described up above. Anglican turned Roman Catholic who visited the Holy Lands, well-known for his beauty and wonderful speaking voice. His parishioners once followed him on holiday and rowed him out to an island and lie on pillows at his feet, asking him to read to them. Loved theatre so much he was observed to cut sermons short in order to dash over to the theatre. He performed the Hamlet that I mentioned, and it definitely got attention. He truly wanted to act, even though he loved lecturing, and before becoming a man of God, he performed beneath Macready (who was rumoured to be his father due to their strikingly similar looks). He was also noted to be very affectionate toward children, especially his own, and his son carried a picture of him with him everywhere, showing it off to reporters, even, until the day he died.  
> -Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man was first recorded in 1698 in a play as a rhyme and set to song by 1796, so I imagine Crowley could play it with a child in 1898.  
> -Fleshing for costumes was fabric worn kind of like tights that were skin-tone in colour. They could cover any portion of the body for modesty's sake, like the death scene in the tub in Charlotte Corday.  
> -I snagged a random popular song from 1940 for Crowley to mention, but the Victorian one--phew! Go look at the lyrics to that (by Fred Coyne). I like to think Aziraphale would definitely look up if he heard the music to that hummed or whistled in his presence!
> 
> Anyway! Bet y'all thought you'd seen the last of me! Nope! It was just hard to get through. Sadness, trying to work through getting the words right, etc. etc. But I'm here! I want to see it through to the end. I think that's about it.
> 
> A question for any of you left reading this--if I was to do a bit of Nanny Ashtoreth and Brother Francis, how do you guys think I should do that? I'm not sure if I will, but I'm thinking. Should the thoughts involving Crowley switch to she pronouns like "she always thought" etc. or should it stay he with his thoughts but be she when everyone is referring to...Nanny? I'm puzzled!
> 
> That about sums it up! I'll try to be better next time; we're nearing the end...??
> 
> See you soon!!!


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